Ultrasonic position reference systems for an autonomous sentry robot and a robot manipulator arm

Abstract

This thesis proposes and develops two microprocessor controlled electronic systems which provide absolute coordinate reference for an autonomous sentry robot and a robotic manipulator. These systems close the position control loop which has never been fully closed in robotics and provide a better "testbed" for testing path planning and manipulator trajectory control. Each system involves know points of reference and ranges to these points which are determined by timing the interval of propagation of the ultrasonic transmissions,, With this data, a microprocessor calculates the positions in Cartesian coordinates.