Articulated Robot Controller

	The Articulated Robot Controller (ARC) is a software application designed to be a teaching tool for instructors of the Industrial Technology Department at Southeastern Louisiana University. ARC provides control of the Industrial Technology Department’s array of articulated robots. Phase 3 (June 2005 - August 2005) Extension: November 2005 Entails refinement of the Mainframe application and Drivers. Addition of non-vital and accessory portions of the application, such as driver options, advanced hardware controller features. Development Crew: Phillip Jackson, William Wayne

Extension
We sought to polish the Mainframe application and refine all of the robot drivers. The Mainframe has been refined, but only the Saturn 5 driver is actively being worked on.

Action List & Source Viewer Scroll Link

One of the issues with the Source Viewer was that as the Action List scrolls, the Source View needs to scroll with it, in order for the lines to correspond to each other.

When either is vertically scrolled, the other one also scrolls. When one needs a horizontal scrollbar, the bar appears on both, to maintain alignment.

Mode Switching Calculation
The Inverse Kinematics labs from Phase 2 produced functions that were incorporated into the application. Though they individually fullfilled thier requirements, I found when switching modes from Joint mode (where the angles of the joints are being changed to move the robot) to XYZ mode (where the 3-dimensional point of the end effector is moved and the joint angles are changed as needed) there was a problem.

In order to start moving the end effector (tip of the arm) I had to tell it where to start from. I didn't know this position, because I had been moving the joint angles to position the robot and the coordinates of the end effector were of little concern.

I needed to be able to calculate the current position of the end effector, given only the joint angles of the robotic arm. The 3D Diamond Back-Track test lab was the used to do this.