Development of Stepper motor based Two DOF Robotic Arm Transferring Liquid using Peristaltic Pump

Sudha Ramasamy, Karthikesh.R, Manikandan.P, Padma Thiagarajan School of Electrical Engineering, VIT University, Vellore, India. School of Biosciences and Technology, VIT University, Vellore, India E-Mail: [email protected] Abstract The aim of this work is to transfer liquid contents from one micro cell to another using two stepper motors and a peristaltic pump. There are two objectives here. One is to develop a low cost robotic arm using stepper motors. The second objective is the control and calibration of the peristaltic pump. All parts are controlled and operated by their respective microcontrollers. Fulfillment of both the objectives leads to an integrated system to transfer liquids from one cell to another. The end effecter of the robotic arm is connected to the peristaltic pump. The pump has two pipes connected to it. Through one pipe it takes in the liquid and through the other pipe it delivers the liquid into the second cell. After transferring one sample of liquid, the arm moves to a cleaning module where the end effecter is cleaned to avoid cross contamination. The robotic arm is built using stepper motors and controlled using Atmega32 microcontroller whereas the peristaltic pump is controlled and calibrated using 8051 microcontroller. The pumping is done with the help of DC motors. As a result, the working of the robotic arm and the peristaltic pump is verified experimentally. KeywordsLiquid Transfer, Microcontroller, Peristaltic Pump, Robotic arm, Stepper Motors