Teleoperation of an industrial robot by inertial measurements of human arm motion

In this study; a compact, portable and low-cost measurement system has been developed in order to make a Stäubli Rx160 model of industrial robot arm simulate simultaneously the movements of human arm. Movements of human arm are perceived according to a reference frame assumed to be placed on shoulder, rotations of the shoulder joint around three axes perpendicular to each other are measured by inertial measurement units fixed to back of elbow, rotations of the elbow joint are also measured by the same units fixed to wrist. Design of the inertial measurement units has been examined seperately and microcontroller-based units with digital accelerometer and gyroscopes have been developed. Two different methods have been analyzed in order to calculate position and orientation of the human ankle using inertial measurement unit data and it is concluded that quaternion algebra-based method is simpler and faster than the Euler angles and the Kalman filter method. Workspaces of human arm and robot arm matched to take advantage of robot workspace at maximum level. Position and orientation where robot arm end functional unit has to stand according to the human wrist have been calculated. Solving analytically forward and inverse kinematics equations of industrial robot arm, joint angles which are required for the targeted position of the end functional unit have been found and the robot has been positioned. Performance of the remote control system whose sampling period is 0,04 second, sensivity is ±1° , time delay is 0,5 second has been analyzed with computer simulations and tests; recommendations regarding the continuation of the study are presented.Key Words: Teleoperation, Stäubli Rx160, Inertial Measurement Unit, Quaternion, Forward Kinematik, Inverse Kinematik