DepartmentofRoboticsandMechatronics

NazarbayevUniversity
ROBT304Electromechanicalsystems,Spring2016

PROJECT

SingleJointRoboticSystem

Students:
BaimukashevDaulet
TorgayevAidyn
RysbekZhanibek
MakhataevaZhanka

Astana2016

Introduction
The design for the single joint robotic system consisted of controller, brushless motor, gearbox
and optical encoder is studied in this project. When the conceptual design was finalized,
additional parts to support the parts and connect different shafts were drawn using Solidworks
software, then printed in 3D printer. The control system was simulated in Matlab software. PID
controller block in discrete domain from simulink library was chosen to control the overall
system.
The detailed descriptions of the proposed design and control are provided in following
sectionofthereport.

Procedure
One of the design requirements of the 1 DOF robotic armistohavenominaltorqueof3Nmand
angular velocity is greater than 8 rad/s. However, nominal torque of the maxon motor is 0.134
Nm. For this reason the gear ratio ofthecompoundgearis3/0.134=23,andwehavetakengear
ratio as 25 for simplicity and availability of mechanical parts, such that pair of 12 and 60 tooth
gears from vex robotics can be applied. Hence, the nominal angular velocity of the arm is 2540
(nominalrpmofmaxonmotor)/60*2pi/25(gearratio)=11rad/swhichisinthedesiredrange.

PHASE1:Testthemotortogetherwiththemotorcontrollerandcontrol/monitortherotor
speedbyusingMatlab/Simulink.
In the first phase we tested control of the motorandgotfamiliarwiththesetup.Wewereableto
readvaluesfrommonitorportofaplc,whichshowsthemovementofamotor.

Fig.1

Fig.2
Thiswasourconceptualdesignofthegearboxconnectiontothemotor

Fig.3

PHASE3:DimensioninganddesignofthegearboxanddetaileddesignwithCADofthe
overalljoint,usingexistinggearsand/or3Dprintedgears.
DimensioninganddesignofthegearboxanddetaileddesignwithCADoftheoveralljoint,
using existing gears and/or 3D printed gears. For this task a possibility is to use the program
OpenScad that allows changing the parameters (of an already designed mechanicalsystem)bya
script.

PHASE31
CADdesignoftheoverallsystem.Thesystemdesignhasbeenoptimizedbyusingprovided
detailssuchasgears,shafts,screwsandholders.Howevertosolvetheproblemrelatedtothe
connectionofthemotorshafttotheoveralldesignappropriatecollarhasbeendesignedand
printed,Inaddition,otherpartsnecessaryforoursetupparticularlyhavebeendesignedand
printed.ThevisualrepresentationofthesetupisprovidedintheFig.4below.Partoftheoutput
ofthisphaseisthe.stlfileofthefunctionalpartsofthesinglejointroboticsystem.Theseparts
willbeprintedinABSmaterial.TheCADdesignofthesystemhasbeendrawnusing
Solidworkssoftware.

Fig.4a

Thepartsofthesystem:
1brushlessmaxonmotor
2supportformotor
3collartoconnectmotorshaftandgear
4encoder
5collartoconnectshaftofoutputgeartooutputshaft
6supportforoutputshaft
7bearingofoutputshaft
8arm
9inputgearandoverallgearbox
10outputshaft

ThegearsandshaftsoftherectangularformistakenfromVEXroboticskits.Theadditional
partswereprintedusing3Dprinter.

ThesepartsarepresentedintheTable1.

Supportformotor

Supportforbearing

Collarformotor

Collarforoutputshaft

Collarforencoder

Table1.

Hardwaremodelofthesystem:

Fig4b.

PHASE4:Differentmodulesbuildingandassembling
Below you can see whole setup wiring. Power supply provides 5V for encoder and 22V for
motor controller. CurrentprovidedtoPLCislimitedto1Ampere.Thevoltageprovidedtomotor
should be in between 10V and 70V maximum. The DAQ card acquires data from encoder and
monitor port of PLC and by processing it in matlab sends +Set and Set signals to controller.
Controller drives the motor depending on the signals coming fromDAQ.Motorisconnectedto
the gearboxviacouplerthatisprintedin3Dprinter.Thegearboxconsistsof6gearsand 3 shafts.
Everything comes from VEX robotics kit. Finally torque istransmittedviagearboxtotheoutput
shaft anditsangularvelocityis measuredbyencoder.Detailedwiringfrom motortothePLCcan
befoundinthedatasheets.

Fig.5

Fig.6,7


Fig.8
PHASE5:Systemmodelingandcontrol.
ThecontrolsystemofthemanipulatorisconstructedusingPIDblockinsimulink
environmentofMatlab.Thefirststepistocollectthesensoryinformationfromencoderwhich
willserveasfeedbacktooursystem.OnlysignalsfromAandBchannelsofencoderwillbe
considered.Correspondingblockdiagraminsimulinkisshowninfigure9.Asaresultwe
receiveonlypulserateperminuteinformation.Therefore,takingintoaccounttheconfiguration
ofencoderweneedtosetgainto360/48=7.5whichwillgiveuspositionmeasurementsin
degrees.


Fig.9.
FromdigitalinputblockwillbereceivedsignalsfromchannelsAandBrespectively.Byaddingsequence
offlipflopsandcountersoutputwillbeconvertedtodegrees.

Asareferencesignaltooursystemsequenceofstepfunctionsareused,whichisintended
tochecktheperformanceappropriately.

Fig.10.
Inputparttosystem.Byclickingmanualswitchblockreferencemightchangetosinusoidalfunction

Bymergingtwopartsabovefinalmodelisconstructed.Since,weareusingfeedback
systemweneedtotakethedifferenceofinputandsensordatatosaywhattodotoPID
controller.Moreover,plant(whichismotorcontrollerinourcase)hasitsowntransferfunction
thereforewetreateditasablackboxwhichcanreceivesignalsbetween10to10V.

Fig.11.

Hereisdepictedoverallfeedbackmodelofcontrolsystem.Differenceofreferenceandencoderdatawill
bedirectedtoPIDblockthentoanalogoutputblocktosendsignalstomotor.

In order to tune PID controller we have referred to ZieglerNicholsheuristicmethod. It

is performed by setting the I (integral) and D (derivative) gains to zero. The "P" (proportional)
gain, is then increased (from zero) until it reaches the ultimate gain , at which theoutputofthe
control loop has stable and consistent oscillations. and the oscillation period areusedtosetthe
P,I,andDgainsdependingonthetypeofcontrollerused:


The critical value empirically was found to be 1. However, by convention we have tried the
simplest model first which is proportional controller. As a result we have obtained promising
performance of controller at P = 0.1, with no error. The resulted tracking behavior is shown in
Fig.1213.

Fig.12.Trackingstepfunctions(above)Signalssenttomotorcontroller(below)


Fig.12.Trackingsinusoidalfunction(above)Signalssenttomotorcontroller(below)

Conclusion
In this project we have considered the problem to design the single jointroboticsystemthatcan
allow with the help of brushless motor, controller, encoder and gearbox as well additional
connecting elements control the position of the arm link. To complete the project Solidworks
software was used for the CAD design. Also, hardware model is built using parts from VEX
robotics kits and additional parts were printed using 3D printer. While simulation and control
procedures were done with the help of Matlab software. Detaileddescriptionsof thedesignwith
corresponding description of the functionality of the design in each stage was discussed.Allthe
figures, Matlab scripts and Solidworks files are provided inthesubmission package.Thesystem
designed fulfills all the requirements for the task, in terms of setup complexity and time
requirements.