Pioneer Arm
The Pioneer Arm is an accessory for Pioneer 2- and 3-DX and -AT robots. It is relatively low-cost for use in research and in the classroom. Driven by six open-loop servo motors, the five degrees-of-freedom (5-DOF) Pioneer Arm’s end-effector is a gripper whose foam-lined fingers allow for firm grasp and manipulation of objects as large as a soda can and as heavy as 150 grams throughout the arm’s envelope of operation from the floor to the back of the robot..
Joints include:
- rotating base
- pivoting shoulder
- pivoting elbow
- rotating wrist
- pivoting gripper mount
- gripper fingers
All servo-driven joints, except for the gripper fingers, pivot or rotate at least 180 degrees. Mounted to the front of the robot’s top plate, the Pioneer Arm has a very wide envelope of operation, reaching 50 centimeters from the center of its rotating base to the tip of its closed fingers. The Pioneer Arm’s reach, therefore, lets you pick up objects from the floor in front of your Pioneer robot and place them on its back.
Control Hardware and Software
The Pioneer Arm comes with its manufacturer’s PIC-based controller and servo-driver hardware and software. These are housed inside the DX on top of the battery box or inside a special accessory box that is mounted at the rear of the Pioneer AT robot’s top-plate.
The Pioneer Arm’s controller is attached to one of the Pioneer microcontroller’s AUX serial ports and supported by generic (“pass-through”), as well as custom servers in P2OS, AROS and ARCOS. Your client software communicates with and controls the Arm through these servers.
There is an abundance of client software for the Pioneer Arm, too, including ARIA and a standalone P2ArmDemo. The Arm now comes bundled with ARIA-integrated inverse kinematics software (Arm Kinematics; AKin), too, as licensed from Fachhochschule Trier University of Applied Sciences. Simply provide the 3-D position for the gripper end-effector and let AKin do the work.
ARIA and ArAKin come with several demonstration clients that you may modify and use to create your own mobile-robotic arm software. Windows® users also get standalone Arm Server software with a Java-based GUI demonstration application (ArmServer and armApplet.jar) from Fachhochschule Trier.
Downloads:
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