Design and Semi-Autonomous Control of a 6-Axis Robotic Arm Used in a Remote Sensing Application

Abstract

This paper describes the sensor and actuator package for a 6-axis articulated arm which is part of a robotic vehicle entered in the Mars Rover Challenge competition. The robot is intended to perform some of the same duties as a human, but be remotely controlled. It uses an articulated arm for many of these duties. Because of the large number of degrees of freedom, it would be tedious to control each joint individually. A system was developed to measure the state of each joint, transmit this information back to a base station, and semi-autonomously control the arm.