Interactive tool for mechatronic systems: Two industrial robot cases

In this paper, an industrial robot interface is presented. This is suitable for different subjects related to robotics including robot kinematics control systems and actuators. Hardware and software stages are depicted. Besides, as a manner to teach students to select and calculate electrical components for a robot, it is presented a retrofit of a commercial six-degree of freedom robot arm from Nachi. Also, it is shown the design of a PC-based interface that poses enhanced features as: generation of profiles, handling and tuning joints and measurement of the main parameters such as electrical torque. An attractive feature for industry applications that poses is the flexibility to be coupled to similar servo systems. The HMI developed increases the quality of a final application that makes it friendly when analyzing and setting in operation. In addition, it is demonstrated that a simple PID controller programed in a TMS320F28335, is sufficient to perform high accuracy tasks. Certain practices are proposed in order to support educative skills for industry mechatronic systems.