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Vo Duy Cong et al., International Journal of Emerging

Volume Trends
9. No. in
9, Engineering
SeptemberResearch,
2021 9(9), September 2021, 1224 – 1229
International Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering Research
Available Online at http://www.warse.org/IJETER/static/pdf/file/ijeter03992021.pdf
https://doi.org/10.30534/ijeter/2021/03992021

Design and Fabrication of 3-DOF Robot Arm Using

Parallelogram Mechanisms
Vo Duy Cong1,2, Dang Anh Duy1,2, Le Hoai Phuong1,2
1
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT), 268 Ly Thuong Kiet, District 10,
Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
2
Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Linh Trung Ward, Thu Duc District,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Received Date : August 03, 2021 Accepted Date : August 22, 2021 Published Date : September 07, 2021

 end-effector. This type of robot is widely used in many

ABSTRACT industrial applications such as picking, packing, sorting,
palletizing, … The mechanical model of the robot is designed
This paper focuses on the design, fabrication and control of a on the Autodesk Inventor software. The separated parts of the
3-DOF robot arm using stepper motors. The robot arm uses robot are fabricated on an Anycubic i3 Mega 3D printer. The
three parallelogram mechanisms to position the end-effector movement of the robotic arm is driven by gearbox stepper
of the robot and keep the end-effector always parallel to the motors. Arduino Uno board is selected for robot control.
horizontal during the robot motion. The robot is designed on Arduino receives commands from the control app and outputs
the Autodesk Inventor software. Separated parts of the robot control signals to stepper motors.
are saved in the stereolithography (STL) file format. Then the
parts are fabricated by a 3D printer. The movement of the 2. LITERATURE REVIEW
robotic arm is driven by stepper motors and controlled by
Arduino. The Arduino board implements kinematics Kruthika et al. [5] present the design and development of a
calculation, creates pulses and sends them to three drivers to 5-DOF robotic arm used for feeding the elderly or specially
driven stepper motors. A software is developed to control the challenged people. The joints angle of the robot is controlled
robot by sending the command to the Arduino board. by the user by using principles of robotic Kinematics and
MATLAB. Arduino MEGA2560 board is the main heart of
Key words: Robot arm, parallelogram mechanisms, robot this project which interfaces with the Graphical User
controller, 3D printing. Interface, motors and sensors. The accuracy of the kinematics
algorithm is verified by MATLAB simulation.
1. INTRODUCTION
In [6], a robotic arm for rehabilitation and training is
In recent decades, automation in production has become more developed. This wearable robot arm can be used easily with
and more popular, not only in large factories but also in small both arms of users. Each joint has a range of rotation from -90
and medium factories, Automatic machines are gradually to 90 degrees so can cover all motions of the human arm. The
replacing manual steps in the production process to increase
designed robot arm will support the patient’s arm during
productivity and product quality. A robot is one of the
training which is repetitive tasks and takes some period of
automatic devices to replace humans in the production
process. time.

Because of the ability to perform dangerous, dirty and/or Kumra et al. [7] present the design and development of a
repetitive tasks with consistent precision and accuracy, the low-cost and user-friendly interface for the control of a
industrial robot arm is increasingly used in a variety of 6-DOF slave teleoperated anthropomorphic robotic arm. The
industries and applications such as handling, palletizing, robot arm is driven by six servo motors. A 2 DOF gripper is
cutting, finishing, sealing and gluing, spraying, welding [1-4]. designed for grasping objects. Force sensors are mounted
between the joints of the manipulator to measure the amount
In this paper, we present a design and fabrication of a 3-DOF of strain placed on each of these joints. Various experiments
robot arm using parallelogram mechanisms to position the are performed to check the performance and the accuracy
Man-Machine Interface. The robot can achieve position
precision within ±0.5cm.

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Sreekanth et al. [8] develop a 6 DOF manipulator used in an The robot has three degrees of freedom corresponding to the
alien environment and for space exploration. The robot is rotation angles θ1, θ2 and θ3. Three stepper motors that placed
made with advanced composite materials with feature at each joint control movements of links 0, 1 and 2 and these
lightweight, high precision. The arm has 2 types of end motions are planned to create the desired motion of the
effectors in an adaptive manner so that it can be utilized in end-effect or. Before planning the trajectory, it is necessary to
grasping both symmetric to asymmetric objects. The high determine the value of the joint angles by solving the
configurability of this arm enables it to perform different tasks kinematics problem.
efficiently under a single platform in space applications.
From basic trigonometry, the position of the end effect or can
be written in terms of the joint angles as follows:
A design and development of 5-DOF robot arm manipulators
are presented in [9]. the robotic arm’s angles are controlled by = ( − + ) (1)
using Cortex ARM M3 LPC1768 Microcontroller. The servo
= ( − + ) (2)
motor is situated at each joint to position the link that is
required at the particular angle using position-controlling on = − + − (3)
the controller. By using rotary encoders, the feedback of the Equations (1), (2) and (3) are called forward kinematic
angle can be measured. The major advantage of the robotic equations of the robot manipulator that describe the
arm is that it can work in high temperature and pressure relationship between the end-effect or coordinates and joint
environments which is not suitable for humans. The operation angles. To find the joint angles for a given set of end-effect or
of the designed robotic arm is verified by experiment. coordinates, one needs to solve the inverse kinematic
equations.
In [10], Huang et al designs and controls an automated arm,
which is mounted on the portable robotic body. The robotic From (1) and (2), we easily obtain:
arm is controlled by the 8052 MCU of Atmel arrangement.
= 2( , ) (4)
The authors have presented the experimental results that the
developed system of dual robotic arms can get organizes from Here we used the atan2 function to get the unique joint angle
binocular vision and hold the payload. This investigation . Square both sides in (1) and (2) then add them together:
finished a sign transmission, the speed and rakish control from
PC to double automated arm framework. − + =± + (5)
Combine with(3) and group the unknowns on the left-hand
3. ROBOT KINEMATICS side:

Figure 1 shows the mechanical schematic of the robot arm. − =± + − = (6)

The end-effector of the robot is positioned using three − = + − = (7)
parallelogram mechanisms that are composed of the following
sets of links: {1,2,4,6}, {0,1,3,5} and {5,6,7,8}. For every Square both sides in each equation and add them together.
motion of the robotic arm the links 0, 5 and 8 remain parallel After that rearrange theterms, we get an equation in − :
to each other and thus keep the end-effector (link 8) always + −2 ( − )= + (8)
parallel to the horizontal.
Now, we can obtain the angle = − :
+ − −
= − =± (9)
2
Rearranging (7) according to the unknown angle , we get:
( + ) − = + − = (10)
Define and so that:

= ( + ) +( )

+
=
(11)

The angle can be determined by using the atan2 function:

Figure 1: The robot arm schematics

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+ creating a solid structure. Two parts with support ribs on both

= 2 , (12) sides are attached to stepper motors, linking the base to the
upper arm.
Substituting and into (10) we get:
4.2Parallelogram mechanisms design
( + )=− (13)

Finally, the solution of angle is:

+
=± − − 2 , (14)

There are four solutions for a given end-effector position.

That means there are four configurations that the robot must
choose to reach the desired position. The value of is
unique, the practical joint limits of joints 2 and 3 are used to
get the unique configuration:

− ≤ ≤ Figure 3: The robot base design

2 2
(15)
0≤ − ≤ From the schematics in Figure 1, the parallelogram
mechanisms are designed as shown in Figure 3. The links in
mechanisms are represented by flat bars with a thickness of
4. MECHANICAL DESIGN AND FABRICATION 5mm. The two ends of each bar are fitted with ball bearings so
that they can be linked to other links and create relative
4.1 Robot base design motion. The length of links is as follows: = 135 , =
150

Figure 4: The upper arms design

The arms are designed as flat plates and connected by

cylindrical steel rods.Figure 4 shows the upper arms when
assembling the flat plates and the stepper motors.

Finally, the base and the upper arm are assembled together to
form the complete model as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 2: The robot base design

The base is an important component that supports the total

weight of the robot. Figure 1 shows parts of the robot base. A
tapered roller bearing is placed between the motor of joint 1
and the base, the bearing bears all the weight of the robot,
Figure 5: The complete model design

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4.33D printing 5. ELECTRONIC AND SOFWARE DESIGN

5.1 Electronic design

Figure 8 shows the block diagram of the electronic circuit.

The Arduino board creates pulses and sends them to three
A4998 drivers to driven stepper motors. In addition, the
Arduino also outputs digital signals to control the solenoid
valve, pump and motor. Since the valve and pump operate at
12V, relays whose coils are energized by the 5V signal from
the Arduino are used to turn ON and OFF them. The pump,
solenoid valve and vacuum suction cup are used in a vacuum
system to grip objects. Arduino communicates with the app on
mobile phone via Bluetooth using the module HC-06 (slave).
Bluetooth communication can be used to control the robot
remotely.

Figure 6: Slicing on Cura Software

Separated parts of the robot are exported in the

stereolithography (STL) file format. The STL files are
imported to the Cura slicing software where they are sliced
and output as G-Code, which is the code that a 3D printer
understands. Figure 6 shows some slice models on the Cura
software. Then the parts are fabricated by a 3D printer. Any Figure 8: The block diagram of electronic circuit
cubic i3 Mega printer machine is used.
The joints of the robot arm are driven by 5.18:1 planetary
Finally, the 3D printed components are assembled together gearbox stepper motors (Figure 9). The motor has a step angle
and with other parts (e.g., motors, bearings, shafts, …) to of 1.8 degrees, a rated current of 1.3 amp, holding torque of
produce a complete robot arm as shown in Figure 7. 28N.cm. The A4998 drivers are set up to operate at the 1/16
step resolution.

Figure 9: 5.18:1 planetary gearbox stepper motors

For simplicity of wiring, we use a CNC shield to connect

Arduino and stepper drivers as shown in Figure 10. The actual
circuit is placed on a box with dimensions of 150x100x50mm
as shown in Figure 11.

Figure 7: Actual robot arm

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buttons are used to decrease the angle value by 0.5 degrees.

Drag the sliders to change the joint angle quickly. Every time
there is a change of joint angles, the new value is sent to the
Arduino via Bluetooth.

Figure 10: CNC shield

Figure 12: Mobile app screen

The app is programmed by using the block-structured

programming language. We program the app by putting
blocks together. Each block has a behavior corresponding to a
specific function. The blocks are combined in a logical
sequence to perform the desired function. Figure 13 shows the
Figure 11: Actual circuit
block code of the app to control the robot arm.
5.2Mobile app design

The mobile app is designed on the MIT Inventor app. The

interface screen is shown in Figure 12.The “+” buttons are
used to increase the angle value by 0.5 degrees, The “-”

Figure 13: Block design on MIT Inventor

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10. G.S Huang, X.S Chen and C.L Chang, “Development of

6. CONCLUSION dual robotic arm system based on binocular vision”,
Automatic Control Conference (CACS), CACS
In this paper, a 3-DOF robot arm is designed and fabricated. International, pp.97- 102,2013.
The mechanical models are designed on Inventor software
and export to the STL file for 3D printing. Using Arduino
board and CNC shield has made the circuit design and wiring
process simpler. The mobile app is developed to control the
robot arm through Bluetooth.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We acknowledge the support of time and facilities from Ho

Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT),
VNU-HCM for this study.

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