This week, we completed our qr tracking algorithm for realtime tracking down the conveyor belt. This program also includes code for determining the box’s speed and depth (y-coordinate). We loosely tested it using our Brio3000 webcam on actual boxes moving on the treadmill, and it seems to work accurately. We also wired the robot arm and got it to pick up packages. We tested the voltage feedback for each component and dialed the angles in the Arduino code to have each actuator have an accurate 0 – 180 measurement. We were able to get t1 and t2 to run specific angle moves with feedback.
Our current main concern is the time it will take the robot arm to grab the package from the treadmill. We are worried that various latencies will make it difficult to move the arm into position in time to grab the box. We plan to extensively test the vision program, PC-Arduino connection, and tweak the motors / Arduino responsiveness to get accurate timings measured. We have already taken steps to address this by having the camera positioned significantly ahead of the arm, and having the arm hover in a neutral position above the conveyor belt. If the timing takes too long, we plan to move the camera closer to the belt and further from the arm to give us more time, and potentially ramp our motors to be faster.
Our next steps are to finish wiring the robot arm’s motors and getting it to run multiple sequential moves (accurately and quickly). We also plan on completing the Python/Arduino interfacing code so that we can immediately run our vision software as soon as the arm is ready.
