INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE, BANGALORE

Flight Controller

Augmentations

Drivers

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Department of Aerospace Engineering

ROBOMANIPAL

RoboCon 2021

Omni Rover

PCB Design Challenge

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RoboManipal Student Team

ALLSKIER SOLUTIONS

IoT Solutions

Edge Computing

Allskier Reel

IE MECHATRONICS

Servo Arm

IUGV

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NEXAMS INDIA PVT LTD

Built a miniature injection molding machine with a clamping force of 5 tons, designed for prototyping and testing experimental plastic granules with melting points up to 200 °C. The project combined mechanical design, high-power actuation, temperature regulation, and custom control software.

Key Features & Implementation:

• Actuation & Mechanics:

  • Heavy-duty NEMA 34 stepper motors used to drive both the heating barrel extrusion screw and the injection/clamping plates.

  • Mechanical assembly designed for durability and repeatability under significant load.

• Heating & Temperature Control:

  • Heating barrel designed to melt plastic granules efficiently up to 200 °C.

  • K-type thermocouples integrated into the barrel for real-time temperature measurement.

  • Relays for heating element switching.

  • Implemented PID control loops to maintain precise temperature setpoints.

• Control System:

  • Raspberry Pi + Arduino combination:

    • Arduino for low-level motor actuation and relay switching.

    • Raspberry Pi running higher-level logic, UI, and setpoint management.

  • Developed a custom control interface using PySimpleGUI, enabling intuitive operation, parameter entry, and monitoring.

• Safety & Stability:

  • Integrated software limits and emergency cutoffs.

  • Electrical and thermal safety considered in design of wiring, insulation, and load distribution.

Lessons Learned:

• Gained deep understanding of thermomechanical control systems.

• Learned how to combine high-torque stepper actuation with thermal processes.

• Developed practical skills in temperature feedback loops, relay control, and motor synchronization.

• Improved ability to design intuitive user interfaces for complex hardware systems.

Why This Project Matters:
This project bridged mechanical engineering, electronics, and control software, providing experience in building industry-relevant prototyping equipment. It highlighted challenges in precision thermal management, high-load actuation, and safe system integration.

I Wish I Could:

• Integrate closed-loop force/pressure feedback sensors for injection control.

• Add graphical process monitoring with live plots of temperature and actuation data.

• Explore multi-material molding capabilities.

• Upgrade heating and control systems for higher temperature polymers.

• Automate cycle sequences to support repeatable, batch-mode prototyping.

E-YANTRA eYRC 2022-2023

We built a triangular, three-wheeled holonomic robot capable of omnidirectional motion. The project was built around E-Yantra’s custom microcontroller platform, designed to tackle challenges involving precision motion control, kinematics, and vision-guided tasks.

Key Features & Implementation:

• Mechanical & Motion Design:

  • Three omni-wheels arranged in a triangular configuration for holonomic drive.

  • Required implementing inverse kinematics equations to map desired velocities and trajectories into individual motor commands.

• Electronics & Control:

  • E-Yantra custom microcontroller as the primary control board.

  • Integrated motor drivers to achieve smooth control across all three wheels.

• Tasks Implemented:

  • Task 1 – Geometric Path Tracing:

    • Programmed the robot to trace basic geometric shapes (squares, circles).

    • Required precise velocity mapping and trajectory control.

  • Task 2 – Vision-Guided Calligraphy:

    • Used an overhead camera system with ArUco markers for localization.

    • Implemented trajectory planning to reproduce calligraphy patterns on a white sheet.

    • Combined real-time localization with closed-loop corrections for accuracy.

Collaborators: Arvind Kaushik, Rishabh Dugar, Jordan Kuruvilla

MISCELLANEOUS

Stop & Go Bot with SR04 and OLED Screen
Built a simple obstacle-avoiding robot using an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor for distance measurement and an OLED screen for real-time feedback. Implemented a stop/go logic based on configurable distance thresholds.

Blynk/ESP32 Controlled Bot
Designed an IoT-enabled robot controlled through the Blynk mobile app using ESP32 Wi-Fi capabilities. Implemented cloud-based commands for direction and speed control, demonstrating integration of IoT frameworks into robotics.

Line Follower Simulation (ROS/Gazebo)
Modeled a differential-drive robot in Fusion 360 and simulated its line-following behavior using ROS1 and Gazebo. Implemented camera/sensor-based perception in simulation and tuned PID controllers for stable tracking.

Modified IKinBody in Modern Robotics Library
Extended the IKinBody() inverse kinematics function to report intermediate Newton-Raphson iterates, enabling visualization of convergence behavior. Applied the new method to a UR5 industrial manipulator and demonstrated convergence in CoppeliaSim.

UR5 Gravity-Driven Dynamics Simulation
Wrote a dynamics simulator function for the UR5 robot arm where all joints were torque-free and influenced only by gravity. Integrated motion using 100+ steps/sec, recorded joint angles into a .csv log, and animated results in CoppeliaSim for validation.

Sampling-Based Path Planning (RRT)
Implemented a Rapidly-exploring Random Tree (RRT) planner to find collision-free paths for a point robot navigating a cluttered 2D environment. Used CoppeliaSim for environment setup and Matplotlib for visualizing the generated path and tree expansion.