I'm currently thinking of starting a new project. First of all, I'm a student in mechanical engineering with a concentration in mechatronics so I love doing these kind of projects and learning along the way. I want to build a robotic arm (probably 5 DOF) that will have a projector at the end kind of like the LuminAR (Overview ‹ Fluid Interfaces — MIT Media Lab). The projector part wil probably be based of the sixth sense device by pranav mistry (Google Code Archive - Long-term storage for Google Code Project Hosting.). I'm thinking of having it projector my computer screen and instead of having it gesture activated, I would make it voice activated (for example, when I say desk it would position itself in a predetermined way so that the image appears on my desk, if I say wall it projects on the wall, etc.) Of course, I will be trying to keep the cost of this project as low as possible even though money is not a problem. I wanted to get some feedback from the community. What you guys think about the project? Is it too ambitious?
It's not too difficult, there are cheap voice recognition modules on eBay that can store up to 15 words, and other that can store 32. Now for the arm to move where you want it will of course need to be preset by you. So basically your going to need to map all the positions and store them in an array, and the VR will be able to go into that array and perform the needed action. You can also get creative with it and say things like "up" and it will move the arm however many degrees up at a time, same for down, left and right.
The possibilities are based on what your willing to do and the knowledge you have. If you already bought the arm and VR module, post a link and we will help you as best as we can.
Thanks for the feedback. I have not bought anything yet. I'm the type of person who plans out everything perfectly before building. I'm planning on making my own robotic arm. Also, what arduino would you suggest for such a project. It has to control quite a few motors (probably 5 servo), the voice detection module and I want it to have a good response time. More comments are welcome!
Five servos, no problem, a regular UNO can do that. The VR will most likely use the TX/RX pins, but you could use software serial if needed. Now for the servos, you will need an external power source that can output 6 volts.
HazardsMind:
Five servos, no problem, a regular UNO can do that. The VR will most likely use the TX/RX pins, but you could use software serial if needed. Now for the servos, you will need an external power source that can output 6 volts.
Not just 6 volts, but with whatever current needs for those servos as well; budget about an amp per servo, more if the servos are particularly large, such as those moving the base and/or shoulder (but check the specs of the servos first). Finding a 6 volt power supply will probably be tricky at best (it's not a common voltage for most power supplies). You can probably get away with 5 volts from a PC power supply (cheaper, and plenty of amps).
Also - when running servos with the Arduino, realize that the libraries used use a particular timer of the Arduino, and thus if anything else you are using needs that timer, both won't play well together. I'm not sure if software serial is included in this, but just be aware of it, and look into it. You might do better to use an external "serial servo controller" - this can offload the processing needs of servo positioning (just send it a command via TTL serial, and forget it - some even allow you to do multiple motor positioning/animation, etc). Check out Pololu for some ideas (they sell such products) - but you can also find similar devices elsewhere. You'll likely have to find or come up with your own software interface solution for such boards, though (they don't work with the Servo library).