Block Diagram

The hardware section contains a microcontroller which acts like the brain of the system. In the system ARM7 LPC2148 is used, an advanced and cost effective microcontroller well suited for applications due to its tiny size, low power consumption, high reliability and efficiency. The flex sensors are used to detect bending or flexing, that change in resistance depending on the amount of bend on the sensor. Accelerometer is used to provide multi axis sensing and more accurate data, which can detect acceleration, inclination and vibration. The block diagram of two environments is as shown:

Virtual environment:

Fig: Virtual Environment

The human hand is provided with the Glove which consists of flex sensors and accelerometer on it. Flex sensors are sensors that change in resistance depending on the amount of bend on the sensor. They convert the change in bend to electrical resistance the more the bend, the more the resistance value. The angular motion (wrist motion) is sensed by the accelerometer. The analog signals coming from the glove are converted to a digital value using internal ADC of microcontroller and mapping the respective reading to the respective servo motors and stepper motor to achieve the desired angle. The ADC used is 10 bit successive approximation.

The communication between the real time and virtual environment is wireless that is action of the human hand is transmitted via RF communication. Display device like TV, is used to view the current scenario and to monitor the actions of robotic hand which is in real time system.

Real time system:

Fig: Real Time System

The robotic hand-arm consists of four servo motors and one stepper motor. The RF receiver receives the input signal from RF transmitter and it is encoded. This encoded signal is given to microcontroller. The microcontroller has output ports are connected to servo motor driver and stepper motor driver which controls the servomotors and stepper motor. Microcontroller runs the motors according to the input hand gestures. Servo motors can be used for angular motion (wrist motion). Most servo motors can rotate about 0 to 180 degrees. Stepper motor is used for the full hand movement in left and right direction that is movement in x-y direction. A wireless camera is placed so that the person in the virtual system can monitor the robot hand actions.