Anthropometric robotic arm with DC motor control system analysis

Today manufacturing processes are undergoing transitions from manual operations to automated one with industrial robots contributing a lot to this process of automation in the industry. One of the complex and diverse applications of industrial robots is the anthropometric robotic arm, which resembles the human arm with respect to degrees of freedom and functions and is primarily designed to enable automation with a human touch. The robotic arm operates on a controlled motion of DC geared motor with a microcontroller. This thesis focuses on the analysis and simulation of the control system of the DC geared motors. The motor parameters are modeled and simulated with the use of MATLAB and Simulink. The control system of the DC geared motor is then analyzed and designed based on the simulation results with the use of root locus technique. Design of the controller parameters is cast into a conventional optimization problem in this paper. The primary goal of the controller is to ensure that the control system behaves in a stable manner. Different types of controllers are developed for the DC motor control system. The disturbance analysis of the controllers developed is also carried out to come to the conclusion which controller is best suited for the DC motors used in the robotic arm.