The Cyberphysical Architecture shown in Figure 1 illustrates the interaction between the hardware actuation and the perception layer of the COBORG system. This elaborates on the general functionality of the COBORG described in the Functional Architecture to detail how this functionality is communicated between the subsystems and physical components.
The perception layer reads information about the system state and other environmental data through the sensing block in the form of voice, vision, and motion data read from the microphone, D435i depth camera, and the T265 tracking camera respectively. The voice data is used in the voice recognition system to identify the keyword “COBORG” and interprets the phrase following the keyword to identify command actions. If the recognized command is to move to the target, then the vision system is triggered to detect the hands, process the 3D position of the part based on the hand positions, then feed that target position to the motion planning system. If the recognized command is to move the target to the home position, then the motion planning system is directly triggered to compact the arm. The motion planning system is also fed obstacle information from the vision system for obstacle avoidance in actuation.
The hardware components are controlled by the perception layer through the motion planning system. The COBORG arm has three HEBI motors in the form of a shoulder, elbow, and wrist joint stemming from outside the user’s right arm. This, along with the rest of the hardware frame and components, is represented in the COBORG’s Unified Robot Description Format (URDF). Using this URDF, these motors are actuated using a trajectory planned by the motion planning system. This trajectory is generated by planning from the arm’s current position to the desired goal position, whether that be the home position or some target pose. This planned path will also avoid obstacles detected by the vision system.
The remainder of the hardware section describes the linkages between the motors, the physical connectivity of the sensors used, and the electrical system. The electrical system is described later as the COBORG custom power distribution PCB.