Design and control of a high performance SCARA type robotic arm with rotary hydraulic actuators

This study proposes a selective compliant assembly robotic arm (SCARA) with two revolute joints for poultry deboning. The joints of the arm are based on two high performance rotary type hydraulic actuators. These actuators are operated by servo valves, which control hydraulic fluid flow and direction. A PID based independent joint control system is considered for controlling the position of each joint. The system was modelled using the MATLAB-SIMULINK toolbox. The simulation results show that the arm was capable of covering a work envelope of 0.9 m times 0.9 m, reaching controlled velocities of up to 7.5 m/s with an average of 5.8 m/s. Obtaining such high speeds and torques would be a difficult task with electrical actuators of the capacity as the hydraulic counterparts considered here.