Design of 3D Digitization Integrated Robotic Arm to Help Clinical Applications

Abstract

Thanks to developing technology, robots have been integrated into many parts of daily life. Robots are called programmable, multifunctional, work, and timesaving devices. In this study, it is aimed to enhance a robotic arm to become a new tool for transferring an object to the virtual environment by integrating a three-dimensional digitizing property to the robotic arm. The robotic arm is developed using the software of Autodesk Fusion 360 and its physical prototype is implemented using PLA filament in three dimensional printers. A general-purpose microcontroller board of Arduino Mega 2560 model connected to motor drivers is used to control stepper motors that conduct robotic arm actions. Encoders used in the threedimensional digitizer are connected to digital pins of the Arduino board to calculate the X-Y-Z coordinates of the object in the space. The proposed system is controlled via the interface program, which is developed in Python programming language. As a result, a device to use in clinical applications is available in our biomechanics laboratuary, now.