Various robotic grippers support or even replace human beings on particular tasks, for example, different industrial applications. However, in some cases complex tasks are required and specifications of the industrial gripper should be more advanced. The adjustment for dynamic environment should be done automatically without a human intervention in a control process.
The aim of this project was to develop a control software system for given mechanical gripper prototype developed in the AASS research lab. Gripper control program was implemented by using Galil motion control hardware and Galil specific low-level programming language. Gripper was equipped with tactile sensors on fingertips to adjust a grasping behavior for objects with different shapes and sizes. In this study the control system for gripper device as well as its integration into the ‘intelligent arm’ system was implemented.
The ‘intelligent arm’system is an ABB IRB 140 industrial robotic manipulator with IRC5 controller and motion capture system installed in the AASS research lab. Communication between Galil and IRC5 controllers allowed the gripper to be managed by IRC5. On the other hand, gripper could communicate its condition into IRC5 and therefore affect the arm motions.
Author: Kramarev, Nikolay
Source: Örebro University