A system on chip design of A 6-axis robotic ARM controller implemented on a low-cost FPGA

Abstract

In this work, we developed a 6-axis robotic arm controller. The robotic arm is powered by hydraulic pump. At each axis its arm is driven by a servo valve. This controller is implemented on a low-cost FPGA. The main control processor supported by some peripherals such as UART, Timer/Counter, Digital I/O, Interrupt, PWM Generator, SPI and SPI Reader is embedded on a FPGA chip. This work is composed of four parts: solving the inverse kinematics problem, designing proper controller, developing required hardwares and developing GUI user application software. With some constraints, a set of formulae is developed to solve the inverse kinematics problem using closed-form method. A 2-DOF PID controller is designed using obtained model from system identification step. The Recursive Least Square method and Pole Placement method are respectively employed for the system identification and the controller design tasks. Required hardwares are then implemented to realize the controller system. Finally, a GUI user application software is developed to interface the controller system with human operator. Through this work, a new robotic controller system is created to replace the old existing controller system which has many constraints such as limited storage space, uneasy usage, time consuming setup and incompatibility with modern communication channel. Overall, this new controller system provides better features which are possible to increase the productivity rate