Original Pioneer 2 5DOF Arm
From MobileRobots Research and Academic Customer Support
The Original Pioneer 2 5-DOF Arm is an accessory for Pioneer 2 and 3 DX and AT robots.
It was replaced in 2008 by the newer Cyton 7DOF Arm.
It is a small, lightweight, low-cost manipulator for use in research and in the classroom. Driven by six open-loop servo motors, the five degrees-of-freedom (5-DOF) Pioneer 2 Arm’s end-effector is a gripper whose foam-lined fingers allow for 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 an envelope of operation reaching 50 centimeters from the center of the arm's 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.
The Pioneer Arm's controller and other electronics are either installed inside the robot, or in an enclosure which may be placed anywhere on the top plate of the robot you wish (attach with provided velcoins).
The Pioneer Arm’s controller is attached to one of the Pioneer microcontroller’s internal AUX serial ports, and the robot firmware (P2OS 1.H, AROS 1.3 or any version of ARCOS) includes support for controlling the arm. Your client software communicates with and controls the arm via the robot's firmware, by sending arm-related commands to the firmware, and receiving arm status information from the firmware in arm-specific data packets. ARIA includes the ArP2Arm class as a programming interface to the arm via the robot firmware.
A simple demonstration GUI program is available as well: P2/P3 Arm Demo GUI.
Also available is a higher level interface, as well as a user interface application created by the Fachochschule Trier University of Applied Sciences: The ArAKin software can calculate the inverse kinematics of the arm given a point in space and position the arm's end effector at that point. The FHT Pioneer Arm Server and Applet is a Java applet that provides a graphical user interface for operating the arm.
See the Manuals page for the arm manual.
- Discontinued
- Sept. 2008
- Replacement
- Cyton 7DOF Arm
- Sales Code(s)
- ACT0010
- Supporting Software
- ARIA
Arm Position Parameters
Each arm manufactured has slightly different position offsets. Before shipping, the arm was calibrated and the robot's microcontroller parameters set to include these values. The calibration values were also recorded, and a copy included in the packaging.
The home position for each joint is not the zero position. See the arm parameters in the microcontroller to see the settings for the home positions and minimum and maximum positions. The parameters also list the number of ticks in 90 degrees for each joint. See the arm manual for more details.
