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A common setting for robotic arms are assembly lines and warehouses. See the video linked below, as well as many of the other videos available on the webpage. Each arm has actuators at various joints, each greatly increasing the cost to produce and purchase these arms. A robotic arm with a singular input would be cheaper to manufacture and purchase, while still maintaining efficiency along the assembly line. Thus, we decided on an assembly line arm and grabber for our project.
Our robotic arm will take up as little space as possible, where it is able to pick up objects on the assembly line, travel horizontally along the same axis, and deposit the object at a new location along that axis. We aim to have the motors in the base, an arm composed mainly of four-bar linkages, and a claw gripper. The claw will have an escapement mechanism to cycle between open and closed positions, and gears that rotate two four-bar linkages. The claw is able to pick up various size objects with different weights. Additionally, we plan on automating the process of picking and placing to mimic the function of the arm working on an actual assembly line.
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