Programming Robotic Manipulator for Pick-and-Place Tasks

At Dhristi Works, I worked on the development of robotic systems for automated beach cleaning. My focus was on developing algorithms for a robotic manipulator to perform pick-and-place tasks, with the intended application of identifying and collecting garbage and placing it into a bag or bin mounted on a mobile rover.

I used ROS to interface a 5-DOF robotic arm with the Gazebo simulator, enabling the robot to be controlled through ROS in both simulated and real environments. This provided a common software interface for developing and testing manipulation algorithms before deployment on the physical robot.

ROS-controlled robotic manipulator — Figure 1: Robotic manipulator controlled through ROS in simulated and real environments

For object grasping, I compared and analyzed several available grasping techniques and interfaced the selected approach with the simulated robot. The system was evaluated on household objects in a simulated environment as a step toward autonomous garbage collection.

Figure 2: Robotic arm grasping household objects in simulation