Spider Robot

The spider robot will be used in monitoring surroundings wirelessly. It will assist in solving the limited movement ability of ordinary existing robots. The proposed robot can be used by individuals to reach their desired location and easy for them to control. Among the various options such as

Project Title

Spider Robot

Project Area of Specialization

Robotics

Project Summary

The spider robot will be used in monitoring surroundings wirelessly. It will assist in solving the limited movement ability of ordinary existing robots. The proposed robot can be used by individuals to reach their desired location and easy for them to control. Among the various options such as drone, car, snake etc., we preferred spider robot because its design is based on biological spider which offers freedom of 360 movement. It can be used for exploring dangerous and/or rough areas for humans, inspecting unstable buildings after natural disasters such as an earthquake, defusing bombs and land mines etc. Arduino Uno R3 is acting as the main brain of robot which will control rotations of servos. PCA9685 servo driver will provide extension to microcontroller for PWM pins. NodeMCU ESP8266 will enable the integration of Wi-Fi with microcontroller. The robot will have a good battery capacity and built-in charging system.

Project Objectives

• Ability to steer and move wirelessly
• Exploring rugged terrains and toxic environments
• Built-in charging system

Project Implementation Method

We started the project by assembling the body parts of our spider robot. Then, we adjusted the servos positions using servo tester so that we don’t have to worry about their maximum and minimum postions. Futhermore, we also ensure that servos do not collide with each other during movement.

In next stage, we made sure each component of our robot is getting constant supply so, VCC and GND pins were made common using veroboard. To avoid short connections, we used glue gun to isulate all naked wires. Some wires and servos were getting heat up so, we used electrical tape in order to stop them to make connection with the body of spider as it was also made up of metal. We made connections of Arduino board with servo driver and WiFi module. We also ensured that all the wires are managed properly, inside the body of robot, so we can program our hardware without any trouble.

Stage 3 is software based. We have programmed NodeMCU and Arduino board using Arduino IDE separately. We uploaded our android application GUI to NodeMCU which will transmit to our smartphone when connecting. We also made it to serial communicate with Arduino. After that, we assigned angles to servo motors by generating PWM signals. The collectiveness of PWM signals represents the functionalities of our robot. We have assigned each fucntionality to designated button on android application.

Benefits of the Project

In 2005, Pakistan faced its strongest earthquake. At that time, it took very long to detect injured people under the debris. In this scenario, we can equip our spider with thermal camera and send it to explore destroyed buildings to find people under them immediately.  In 1945, US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Due to radiations, it was not possible for humans to explore these radioactive areas. In this case, we can equip spider with radiation shielding body parts and send it for exploration. For military purposes, it can be used to detect mines and defuse bombs.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Servos are made synchronized with each other and delay is minimized among them. Spider can walk, rotate, sit, stand, and say hello. Interface of android application is simple and easy to use. User can use the functionalities of spider robot wirelessly. However due to lack of funds, we were unable to equipped it with original metal gear servo motors. As only servo motors with plastic gears are available in Pakistan, we didn't have any funds to import original ones from Amazon.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Others

Other Industries

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Sustainable Development Goals

Climate Action

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com