Recycling and Updating an Educational Robot Manipulator with Open-Hardware-Architecture

This article presents a methodology to recycle and upgrade a 4-DOF educational robot manipulator with a gripper. The robot is upgraded by providing it an artificial vision that allows obtaining the position and shape of objects collected by it. A low-cost and open-source hardware solution is also proposed to achieve motion control of the robot through a decentralized control scheme. The robot joints are actuated through five direct current motors coupled to optical encoders. Each encoder signal is fed to a proportional integral derivative controller with anti-windup that employs the motor velocity provided by a state observer. The motion controller works with only two open-architecture Arduino Mega boards, which carry out data acquisition of the optical encoder signals. MATLAB-Simulink is used to implement the controller as well as a friendly graphical interface, which allows the user to interact with the manipulator. The communication between the Arduino boards and MATLAB-Simulink is performed in real-time utilizing the Arduino IO Toolbox. Through the proposed controller, the robot follows a trajectory to collect a desired object, avoiding its collision with other objects. This fact is verified through a set of experiments presented in the paper.

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OpenSWAP, an Open Architecture, Low Cost Class of Autonomous Surface Vehicles for Geophysical Surveys in the Shallow Water Environment

Remote Sensing ◽

10.3390/rs12162575 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (16) ◽

pp. 2575 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Giuseppe Stanghellini ◽

Fabrizio Del Bianco ◽

Luca Gasperini

Keyword(s):

Shallow Water ◽

Autonomous Vehicles ◽

Low Cost ◽

Water Environment ◽

Open Architecture ◽

Open Hardware ◽

Autonomous Surface Vehicles ◽

Geophysical Surveys ◽

Seismogenic Faults ◽

Conventional Systems

OpenSWAP is a class of innovative open architecture, low cost autonomous vehicles for geological/geophysical studies of shallow water environments. Although they can host different types of sensors, these vehicles were specifically designed for geophysical surveys, i.e., for the acquisition of bathymetric and stratigraphic data through single- and multibeam echosounders, side-scan sonars, and seismic-reflection systems. The main characteristic of the OpenSWAP vehicles is their ability of following pre-defined routes with high accuracy under acceptable weather and sea conditions. This would open the door to 4D (repeated) surveys, which constitute a powerful tool to analyze morphological and stratigraphic changes of the sediment/water interface and of the shallow substratum eventually caused by sediment dynamics (erosion vs. deposition), slumps and gravitative failures, earthquakes (slip along seismogenic faults and secondary effects of shaking), tsunamis, etc. The low cost and the open hardware/software architectures of these systems, which can be modified by the end users, lead for planning and execution of cooperative and adaptive surveys with different instruments not yet implemented or tested. Together with a technical description of the vehicles, we provide different case studies where they were successfully employed, carried out in environments not, or very difficultly accessed through conventional systems.

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Experimental Setting for Applying Mechanical Stimuli to Study the Endothelial Response of Ex Vivo Vessels under Realistic Pathophysiological Environments

Life ◽

10.3390/life11070671 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (7) ◽

pp. 671

Author(s):

Ana Osuna ◽

Anna Ulldemolins ◽

Hector Sanz-Fraile ◽

Jorge Otero ◽

Núria Farré ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ex Vivo ◽

Low Cost ◽

Technical Information ◽

Rabbit Aorta ◽

Pressure Waveform ◽

Mechanical Stimuli ◽

Experimental Setting ◽

Endothelial Response ◽

Flow Through ◽

Open Source Hardware

This paper describes the design, construction and testing of an experimental setting, making it possible to study the endothelium under different pathophysiological conditions. This novel experimental approach allows the application of the following stimuli to an ex vivo vessel in a physiological bath: (a) a realistic intravascular pressure waveform defined by the user; (b) shear stress in the endothelial layer since, in addition to the pressure waveform, the flow through the vessel can be independently controlled by the user; (c) conditions of hypo/hyperoxia and hypo/hypercapnia in an intravascular circulating medium. These stimuli can be applied alone or in different combinations to study possible synergistic or antagonistic effects. The setting performance is illustrated by a proof of concept in an ex vivo rabbit aorta. The experimental setting is easy to build by using very low-cost materials widely available. Online Supplement files provide all the technical information (e.g., circuits, codes, 3D printer drivers) following an open-source hardware approach for free replication.

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ResUHUrge: A Low Cost and Fully Functional Ventilator Indicated for Application in COVID-19 Patients

Sensors ◽

10.3390/s20236774 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 20 (23) ◽

pp. 6774

Author(s):

Francisco José Vivas Fernández ◽

José Sánchez Segovia ◽

Ismael Martel Bravo ◽

Carlos García Ramos ◽

Daniel Ruiz Castilla ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Low Cost ◽

Pulmonary Ventilation ◽

Lung Infection ◽

Health Condition ◽

Multidisciplinary Research ◽

Global North ◽

Severity Of The Disease ◽

Open Source Hardware ◽

The University

Although the cure for the SARS-CoV-2 virus (COVID-19) will come in the form of pharmaceutical solutions and/or a vaccine, one of the only ways to face it at present is to guarantee the best quality of health for patients, so that they can overcome the disease on their own. Therefore, and considering that COVID-19 generally causes damage to the respiratory system (in the form of lung infection), it is essential to ensure the best pulmonary ventilation for the patient. However, depending on the severity of the disease and the health condition of the patient, the situation can become critical when the patient has respiratory distress or becomes unable to breathe on his/her own. In that case, the ventilator becomes the lifeline of the patient. This device must keep patients stable until, on their own or with the help of medications, they manage to overcome the lung infection. However, with thousands or hundreds of thousands of infected patients, no country has enough ventilators. If this situation has become critical in the Global North, it has turned disastrous in developing countries, where ventilators are even more scarce. This article shows the race against time of a multidisciplinary research team at the University of Huelva, UHU, southwest of Spain, to develop an inexpensive, multifunctional, and easy-to-manufacture ventilator, which has been named ResUHUrge. The device meets all medical requirements and is developed with open-source hardware and software.

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Developing of Three Degree of Freedoms SCARA Robot

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.267.217 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 267 ◽

pp. 217-220 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Jiang Tian Shi ◽

De Xin Sun ◽

Hong Zhuang Zhang

Keyword(s):

Control System ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Solid Model ◽

Motion Controller ◽

Scara Robot ◽

Mechanical Structure ◽

Open Hardware ◽

Software Structure ◽

The Status

Mechanical structure of three degree of freedoms SCARA robot adopts horizontal joints, and opening PMAC multitude axis motion controller based PC is looked as kernel of control system, adopts the open hardware and software structure, we can conveniently enlarge its functions according to needs, so it has very good expansibility. Its three-dimensional solid model and virtual assemble is carried out using CATIA application, so that we can estimate the status of interference. Through validation, we can prove the feasibility of the robot.

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InfoCoral: Open-Source Hardware for Low-Cost, High-Density Concurrent Simple Response Ubiquitous Systems

2011 IEEE 11th International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies ◽

10.1109/icalt.2011.198 ◽

2011 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Imran A. Zualkernan

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Low Cost ◽

High Density ◽

Ubiquitous Systems ◽

Open Source Hardware

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Electromyography-controlled car: A proof of concept based on surface electromyography, Extreme Learning Machines and low-cost open hardware

Computers & Electrical Engineering ◽

10.1016/j.compeleceng.2018.11.012 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 73 ◽

pp. 167-179 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

Rafaela C. de Freitas ◽

Rodrigo Alves ◽

Abel G. da Silva Filho ◽

Ricardo E. de Souza ◽

Byron L.D. Bezerra ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Surface Electromyography ◽

Low Cost ◽

Proof Of Concept ◽

Extreme Learning Machines ◽

Open Hardware ◽

Learning Machines

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Open-Source Hardware Is a Low-Cost Alternative for Scientific Instrumentation and Research

Modern Instrumentation ◽

10.4236/mi.2012.12002 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 01 (02) ◽

pp. 8-20 ◽

Cited By ~ 75

Author(s):

Daniel K. Fisher ◽

Peter J. Gould

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Low Cost ◽

Scientific Instrumentation ◽

Open Source Hardware

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Computer Numerically Controlled Drawing Robot Based on Computer-Aided Design

Journal of Mechanical, Civil and Industrial Engineering ◽

10.32996/jmcie.2021.2.1.2 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Antor Mahamudul Hashan ◽

Abdullah Haidari ◽

Srishti Saha ◽

Titas Paul

Keyword(s):

Open Source ◽

Computer Aided Design ◽

Low Cost ◽

Rapid Development ◽

Main Idea ◽

Numerical Control ◽

Computer Aided ◽

Complex Circuits ◽

Open Source Hardware ◽

Aided Design

Due to the rapid development of technology, the use of numerically controlled machines in the industry is increasing. The main idea behind this paper is computer-aided design (CAD) based low-cost computer numerical control 2D drawing robot that can accurately draw complex circuits, diagrams, logos, etc. The system is created using open-source hardware and software, which makes it available at a low cost. The open-source LibreCAD application has been used for computer-aided design. Geometric data of a CAD model is converted to coordinate points using the python-based F-Engrave application. This system uses the Arduino UNO board as a signal generator of the universal g-code sender without compromising the performance. The proposed drawing robot is designed as a low-cost robot for educational purposes and aims to increase the student's interest in robotics and computer-aided design (CAD) skills to the next level. The drawing robot structure has been developed, and it meets the requirements of low cost with satisfactory experimental results.

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