WayBot: A low cost manipulator for playing Javanese puppet

As one of the most successful game kit, Kinect has been used widely outside gaming. Kinect provides easy and cheap solution for stereo camera. Its openness in software architecture unlocks many new applications. This paper presents a platform that can be used to connect Kinect, arduino, MATLAB and a 4-DOF (RRRR 3D) manipulator. The manipulator is designed as a Wayang (Javanese puppet) character that can be played by the operator called dalang. Using a simple vector manipulation, the skeleton data from Kinect is translated into joint angles, which are sent to the manipulator. Different Kinect parameters are investigated to find the optimal control settings. Experimental results show that the platform can effectively control the manipulator although only using feedforward control scheme. Two wayang characters have been played well using the platform. The platform can also be used as a robotics teaching kit.