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Residential cupping robot
Designing a compact arm and specialized gripper for home settings, with magnetic-encoder feedback for closed-loop stepper control.
Technical illustrationSTM32⇄Encoder feedback
- Period
- Jun 2023 — Oct 2023
- Role
- Project lead
- Institution & location
- Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University · Suzhou
Advisors · Dr. Qinglei Bu & Prof. Jie Sun
Background
Designed for elderly users in Chinese households, this project explores compact mechanical and control solutions for residential cupping, focusing on arm size, the end-effector, and trajectory execution.
My contributions
- Led mechanical design of a specialized gripper and a compact arm with a 63.3 cm reach.
- Implemented closed-loop stepper control using STM32 and magnetic encoders to improve gripping and trajectory execution.
- Validated kinematics, joint accelerations, and trajectories using D-H parameters and MATLAB Robotics Toolbox.
Technical approach
Mechanical design
Design a compact arm, base, and specialized gripper.
Feedback control
Close the stepper-control loop with magnetic-encoder feedback.
Kinematic validation
Validate trajectories and accelerations in simulation and compare control modes.
Outcomes & evaluation
63.3 cmArm reach
STM32Closed-loop controller
- Experiments showed that closed-loop control reduced missed steps in the second and third axes.
- The research was published in Robot Intelligence Technology and Applications 8.
Next project
Autonomous delivery vehicle
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