LabView to build a robot

[gv100]

Hi,

I'm new to programming in LabView and I have to built a robot using LabView.

But I don't know where exactly to start

I have to let the robot perform a few functions like grabbing an object, sort the objects,...

Can anyone help by showing examples of LabView programming for robots?

[hecmar.arreola]

Wow.  Talk about diving into the deep end.  What is your programming experience?  Do you know State Machine and Fuzzy Logic basics?

[Mark_Yedinak]

This is a rather vague question. Do you have more details you could provide? Is this an assignment or are you doing this for fun?

[gv100]

The only programming expierence I have is a basic Java course.

The reason I'm building a robot is for an assignment for college.

It's gonna be a robot that can recognize and sort plastic cups, coca cola cans. The robot has to grab the cans/cups with it's arm and then it will apply a pressure on the can/cup and based on how much pressure the object can handle before it is pressed, the robot will sort can and cup.

I hope this is enough info to see what the robot is doing

[jcarmody]

http://search.ni.com/nisearch/app/main/p/q/mindstorms/

[Mark_Yedinak]

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gv100 wrote:

The only programming expierence I have is a basic Java course.

The reason I'm building a robot is for an assignment for college.

It's gonna be a robot that can recognize and sort plastic cups, coca cola cans. The robot has to grab the cans/cups with it's arm and then it will apply a pressure on the can/cup and based on how much pressure the object can handle before it is pressed, the robot will sort can and cup.

I hope this is enough info to see what the robot is doing

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I would look through the link that was provided. Also, don't expect this forum to provide you with a solution to your assignment. Folks here will be more than willing to help you work through issues but as a rule we do not do student's homework. I would suggest trying to put something together and post what you have done so far with specific questions.

[Michiel_H]

Hi gv

As the programmation will depend a lot on how your robot looks like, how exactly you drive the motors, read the sensors etc. you will need to give some extra information.

So if you give out some more details on how the robot is working, what hardware you are using... people will be able to give you more specific tips & tricks or guide you to examples.

[eek]

Hi gv100,

Glad to hear you're trying out LabVIEW for your robotics project. I think you've made a good choice.

Sounds like your project entails a fixed-base robotic arm that incorporates varying elements of vision and force feedback. Like the other guys said, you should probably think about what hardware you'll be working with first. What sensors do you intend to use? What kind of camera? Strain gauges? etc. There should be several technical resources available on ni.com for interfacing to a variety of sensors. Here's a good place to start: http://www.ni.com/devzone/idnet/

And what kind of processing target to you plan to use? Will you be running from a Windows computer or do you plan to use an embedded processing target? One of the nice things about LabVIEW is that you have a variety of processing targets to choose from, without having to worry about major changes in your LabVIEW code.

And I agree with Jim's suggestion: The LEGO Mindstorms NXT is a great, low-cost robot prototyping tool (despite the fact that it's typically seen as a toy). If you can get your hands on one of those, you'll have access to a variety of sensors and actuators, an ARM 7 prcoessing target, and the ability to build your program using LabVIEW and the NXT toolkit.

For general Getting Started material for building robots, we have the Robotics Fundamentals Series. These tutorials may not be specific to your project, but it might help you wrap your head around what design elements are typically involved when building a robot from scratch.

Hope this helps.
Emilie