The design of a computer controlled planar manipulator

The research presented in this report consists of the complete design, construction, and simulation of a planar manipulator device which was intended to be computer controlled. Designed as a research tool, the Planar Manipulator was instrumented for position, velocity, and torque control at each joint. A modularity feature was also designed into the robot to allow for interchanging any electromechanical components and to enable structural substitutions for investigations into manipulator elasticity and vibrations. The completed robot was run under open loop control and successfully exceeded performance specifications and design criteria. In addition a simulation program based upon a mathematical model of the Planar Manipulator was developed. The model used the voltage into the power amplifiers as the system input and the joint angular position, velocity, and acceleration as the system output. The simulation program reasonably represented the system when compared to experimental results for both a step input function and a sinusoidal input function at each joint.