The assistive robotic arm

Presented in this design is an assistive robotic arm. The assistive robotic arm contains the following subunits: a base, upper arm, lower arm, wrist, and gripping device. The arm is controlled by a microcontroller. The base houses one motor and the microcontroller. Other features of this device include detachable grippers and utensils along with an external keypad from which the client controls the device. When the device is fully extended, the client´s new radius of extension is twenty-five inches. The following design, contained in this report, is a senior design project from the University of Connecticut sponsored by the National Science Foundation. The design assists a young, fifth grade boy with quadriplegic, athetoid cerebral palsy to function more independently in his integrated classroom setting. The goal of this design is to provide a child with only gross motor skills a way to eat autonomously and also provide a grip mechanism that would resemble the human hand. The device also closely resembles the movements of the human arm by providing a full range of motion about the x, y, and z axes and throughout the three primary planes of motion.