Human Arm Imitation by a 7-DOF Serial Manipulator

This document is a report of the project done in partial fulfillment of the course of Artificial Intelligent (Spring-2013). It contains all the details of the algorithms and methods used in the project, as well as description of the robot used for experiments. It also contains some useful information on solving inverse kinematics problems. The project aims at developing a system for training industrial manipulator robots through a human controller. The imitation of the human arm by the robot arm can help remove the physical limitations of human working capability. Microsoft Kinect Sensor is used in the project, along with OpenNI and Nite libraries that provide the necessary functions to get 3D (x,y,z) coordinates of each human joint (20 in total). Amtec PowerCube Robot serves as the 7-DOF manipulator. The code was implemented using Microsoft Visual Studio and communication to the bot through Serial Communication using a RS232 Serial Cable. Satisfactory imitation was achieved which was mainly limited due to the speed limitations of the robot manipulator.