Controlling a robot arm

Projects Discussion and Showcase Robotics
1

I am trying to get a robot arm to mimic my own through Megas and Xbees. I have put a 3 axis accelerator (ADXL 335) on my forearm and tried unsuccessfully to get enough data to go to the 4 servos, to copy my own arm movements.

  1. Forearm up and down
  2. Arm up and down
  3. Arm swivel
  4. Arm back and forward.
    The next stage is replace the ADXL 335 with an IMU (ArduIMU+ V3)
    DIYDrones ArduIMU+ V3 - DEV-11055 - SparkFun Electronics
    Before I spend huge hours working out a script and sleepless nights, has someone already do it, or where can I look.
    Thanks
2

Maybe start simple first.

3

I found something that might help someone in the same boat

http://code.google.com/p/ardu-imu/downloads/detail?name=ArduIMU_Kalman.zip&can=2&q=

Cheers

4

An accelerometer will not give easy to use information whilst the arm is moving, as a
moving arm is accelerating so orientation direction is mixed up with accelerations and
vibrations. A very slow moving arm might be possible. Generally a gyro gives you
orientation during motion, an accelerometer corrects gyro drift since it can measure
gravity in the long term.