Publication

Abstract : As there is a severe shortage in human coconut tree climbers, there is a dire need to help the coconut tree farmers and the consumers who are suffering a lot due to inability to harvest coconuts in time, which has led to severe increase in price of coconuts. In this research work, we propose to develop a wearable device to be worn over the human arm to control a robotic arm which is fitted with the unmanned robotic coconut tree climber to harvest the coconuts. We present the design, development, and application of this wearable device in a detailed way in this paper. The user can control the robotic arm via the wearable device with the help of the robotic operating system based controller from the ground with wireless interface. The algorithm we developed can estimate the position of the arm of the user wearing the device in three-dimensional space and also map it to the workspace of the robotic arm. The experimentation and the results in our lab setup show that this wearable device can be user-friendly and simple to use apart from playing significant role as the controller of the arm.