Project
Robotic Pick-and-Place Arm
Autonomous multi-axis arm with FSM control and ultrasonic sensing
Prototype
Summary
A multi-axis robotic arm built for autonomous pick-and-place operation, using Arduino, servo motors, and ultrasonic object detection.
Use case
Used to explore closed-loop motion control and sensor-driven task automation on real hardware.
Who it's for
- engineers
- students
Stack
- Arduino (C/C++)
- Servo Control
- Ultrasonic Sensing
- FSM Logic
Design deep dive
Problem
Reliable pick-and-place automation requires the arm to sense, decide, and act without a human in the loop, and to fail gracefully instead of jamming or dropping objects.
Design
A finite state machine governs motion sequencing, sensor polling, and error handling, so the same control loop scales from calibration to full autonomous cycles.
Engineering considerations
- Servo calibration: tuned joint angles and motion parameters to improve task repeatability and object-handling reliability.
- Sensor feedback: ultrasonic ranging drives pick timing and collision avoidance in the FSM.
- Error handling: explicit failure states instead of silent stalls when an object is missed or misaligned.