Abstract:
A Six-axis Virtual Robot arm (SVR) was designed with adjustable kinematic parameters to
mimic a 6-axis articulate robotic manipulator with revolute joints having 6 degrees of freedom.
The screen based interface was complemented by a custom designed external controller which
was connected through the parallel port of the PC. The interface and the main mathematical
engine that deals with rigid body transformations has been implemented with Borland Delphi 6,
while the external controller was based on the 10-bit A/D channels of the PIC18F458
microcontroller, programmed using the MPASM assembler by Microchip Inc.
The SVR can be manipulated using direct kinematics to change the spatial orientation of virtual
objects in 3 dimensions. Picking and placing of virtual objects can be done by using the virtual
proximity sensors and virtual touch sensors incorporated in to the jaw design of the SVR.
Furthermore, it can be trained to perform a sequence of movements repeatedly, to simulate the
function of a real industrial robotic manipulator.
