Simulation and Implementation of Real-Time Vision-Based Control System for 2-DoF Robotic Arm Using PID with Hardware-in-the-Loop

Microsoft Kinect sensor has shown the research community that it's more than just an interactive gaming device, due to its multi-functional abilities and high reliability. In this work, online HIL (Hardware-in-the-Loop) experimental data are used to apply human motion imitation to a 2-degree of freedom Lego Mind storm NXT robotic arm. A model simulation of the dc motor used in this experiment is also present in this paper. The acquired input data from the Kinect sensor are processed in a closed loop PID controller with feedback from motors encoders. The applied algorithms solve the overlapping input problem, conducting a simultaneous control of both shoulder and elbow joints, and solving the overlapping input problem as well. The work in this paper is presented as a prototype to assure the applicability of the algorithms, for further development.