ARM lab supports/supervises senior design projects each semester. Senior design teams that are interested in working on robotic-related projects are always welcome to contact Prof. Jafari at: amir.jafari@unt.edu to schedule a face-to-face meeting in my office at Discovery Park-Biomedical Engineering Building room-K240I. Upon receiving confirmation by the Senior Design Instructor, the team is expected to:

 

 

1- clearly define objective of the project and its expected outcomes and timeline for its deliverables,

2- have regular meetings with Prof. Jafari on a weekly basis, to present progress reports and discuss the future steps

3- clearly define contribution of each member of the team to achieve the objective

4- prepare project’s reports at the end of each month and get them approved by the Senior Design Instructor

 

 

Below are some examples of the past senior design projects supported by ARM lab:

 

 

Project Title: Compliant robotic hand based on synergy between fingers

 

The purpose of this project is to design a low cost electromyography (EMG) controlled humanoid robotic hand.  This reports primary objective is to provide a detailed review of the projects progress throughout the duration of Senior Design 1.  A secondary objective of this report is to provide future project management plans for Senior Design 2.  The customer requires the robotic hand to be capable of grasping a 3 inch diameter ball, or cup.  Research was reviewed to determine which human hand grasping characteristics were needed to achieve this specification.  SMAK Engineering generated three possible design concepts.    After studying the design characteristics of each concept, a 17 degree of freedom hand was determined to best to achieve the customers grasping specification.  The selected design concept was also determined measuring several other design factors covered within the report.  The 17 degree of freedom hand concept was further developed to incorporate a cable-pulley mechanism operated by two or less actuators.  Preliminary Analysis of the design concept was started in Senior Design 1.  A thorough analysis will be completed over the winter break to refine, and finalize the design of the device.  The testing, and build phases of project will be completed in Senior Design 2.

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Project Title: Remotely Actuated Lower Extremity Exoskeleton 

 

The purpose of this paper is to outline the design of a new high efficiency lower extremity exoskeleton. By reducing the weight and moment of inertia of an exoskeleton the efficiency can be drastically increased. Instead of powering 6 joints (hip, knee, and ankle) this system will allow operators to selectively power joints. This, along with a reduction in moment of inertia by relocating the actuators to the back of the operator will allow for a drastic boost in power efficiency. The torque motors used to power the system will be connected to the joint via a flexible driveshaft system. A unique coupling system will be developed to make changing the powered joints a quick and simple process. 

A technical introduction is given highlighting exactly what an exoskeleton is along with a small literature review of other projects similar to this one. The goals and deliverables of this project are provided along with an explanation of what is currently missing in research literature and details of how this project will fill in these holes. A plan detailing the 3-year timeline of this project is presented as is a risks and mitigation section. Finally, the first appendix shows the preliminary analysis of the project while the second contains the CV’s of parties involved along with references. 

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Project Title: Electromagnetic Soft Actuators

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As the new era of technology advances without boundaries, the more demand for intricate autonomous systems and human-like robots continues to increment. Soft robotics it’s a field of science and technology that is starting to bloom rapidly. The robotic soft actuator presented is able to manipulate speed, force and displacement the same as a voice coil actuator without having the same amount of stiffness and density-to-weight ratio. The project is overseen by Dr. Jafari head of the Advance Robotics Manipulator Lab at UTSA, and supported by other faculty and undergraduate and graduate students. In addition, team strengths and weakness are identified to be able to have a goal. Consequently, to understand the functionality and benefits of the soft actuator better twenty-five different patents of actuators are summarized and compared. 

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Project Title: Treadmill with Adjustable Surface Stiffness

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In recent years, research into bipedal robots and exoskeletons has been an exciting and rapidly growing field. Human augmentation, through the building of exoskeletons, is dependent on a deep understanding of how a human body operates on its own. The human body is very efficient at compensating for the various surface conditions it encounters when moving throughout the environment. Learning about the kinematics of bipedal motion is critical to future endeavors and projects focusing on exoskeletons. The problem is that most modern lab environments are lacking a method to simulate a range of ground stiffness conditions. The purpose of this project is to produce a Variable Surface Stiffness Treadmill (VSST) which will allow researchers to learn and observe how bipedal locomotion is affected by ground surface stiffness in a laboratory environment. The VSST will be used as a research tool in the Advanced Robotics Manipulator (ARM) Lab. The VSST will be a critical tool in the HEXAS Lower Extremity Exoskeleton Project. This report describes the preliminary concept development of the VSST research tool which will be further developed in the coming year.

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Project Title: Battling Rowdy Bots

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The purpose of this project is to develop a wheeled robot that, in a time of 1 minutes will either;   (a) push your opponents’ robot out of a 3-foot diameter arena, or (b) disable your opponents’ robot.

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Project Title: Sumobot

 

Team ASTM has been tasked with designing a sumobot, which is a robot constructed and programmed to perform like a sumo wrestler in an arena competition.  The primary objective of the competition is to push the opposition sumobot outside of the boundary line representing the arena before our team’s sumobot is pushed out of bounds.

To accomplish this task, the team was limited to constructing a sumobot that was no longer than 20-cm, no wider than 20-cm, and powered by no more than 12-volts of direct current.  For the input sensors, each team was allowed to use any combination and total number of infrared line sensors, touch sensors, ultrasonic range sensors, and infrared range sensors for data acquisition.  Writing the functionality code, controlling the servo motors, and processing the input data was accomplished with an Arduino motor shield, Arduino Mega board, circuitry bread board, and Arduino software used in conjunction with a common laptop computer.  All items were mounted on an INSMA Motor Smart Robot Car Chassis Kit with a 6-volt battery pack (4 x AA batteries) and the two servo motors that were included.  The bill of materials showing the individual cost of parts and total cost of the project is shown in Figure A1 of the appendix.

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