Digital Twin in Machinery and Tools – Miniature Robot Arm with Potentiometer-based Control and MQTT Communication

Demonstration video is located at the bottom of this document.

Executive Summary

Firstly, the robotic arm is going to be assembled. Movement of the robotic arm will be handled with potentiometers. Potentiometers movement position save and repeatedly making the move after pressing button. Fetching and displaying data will be handled.

Objectives

• Construct a functional miniature robot arm using 3D model as the primary building material.
• Integrate four potentiometers to enable precise control of the robot arm's movements.
• Implement an MQTT communication in microPython to facilitate data exchange between the robot arm and external devices.
• Sending datas to a Database

Project Scope

Minimizing human requirements and errors in the industrial arms with remote control capabilities and watching the industrial arm's conditions in real time.

1 Servo for clipper (open-close)

4 MG996R Servo (controlling each arm link)

4 10K Potentiometer(to move MG996R servos with potentiometers)

4 Button(for mutiple feature)

• 1 for switching server and potentiometer controlling
• 1 for record arm movements
• 1 for playing this record
• 1 for open and close clipper to hold objects

ESP32(comminicate between components and Internet)

Assembling the servo motors, potentiometers and making cable connections circuit desing

Get together potetiometers, servo motors, and make connection with ESP32

Now Add Pyhton Codes to ESP32

Creating Node-Red Flow MQTT_in nodes connects a topic and gets sends data to gauges MQTT_out nodes send data to ESP32 from sliders Orange nodes helps to store data to SQLite database

Main Robot Arm

SCARA Arm

Creating Node-Red UI Sliders helps to control servos in Node-Red Gauges are shows the angle of potentiometers and servos Database is a SQLite database that stores the servo names, values, and status

Watch the demonstration video

This project aims to provide precise control and remote monitoring capabilities for industrial arms, ultimately reducing human intervention and minimizing errors. It demonstrates the integration of hardware, software, and data handling to create a functional miniature robot arm.