Capstone on Matthew Bonanni

Capstone Project: Forearms for NASA Valkyrie

Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Overview

This was a 6 month design effort by a team of five Northeastern University Mechanical Engineering students: Matthew Bonanni, Max Choate, David Coven, Bryant Grey-Stewart, and Ryan Loehr.

My specific contributions encompassed initial requirements analysis, mechanical design of structural components (particularly bearing structures for actuators), and kinematic modeling software.

Abstract

The manipulation of hazardous materials within a glovebox is a promising application of humanoid robotics. NASA R5 “Valkyrie” is an excellent candidate for this task; however, the constraints of a glovebox limit the volume in which Valkyrie’s existing hardware can effectively operate.

Kinematic Modeling of Constrained Robot Arms

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Capstone Project · GitHub Repo

Overview

This software models and optimizes the accessible volume, or “gamut,” of robotic arms when constrained by a glovebox.

I created this tool for our capstone design project involving a glovebox-optimized robotic forearm for NASA’s Valkyrie R5 robot. Section 6 of the project’s final report contains details on the software’s design and implementation.

Robotic arms are modeled using Denavit-Hartenberg parameters, and represented in MATLAB as rigid body trees. This approach enables computation of transformation matrices between joints at specified angles. The software generates point clouds by iterating through joint position combinations and filtering for collision-free endpoints. Convex hull computation permits design comparisons.

NASA Valkyrie: Active Tool Change

Tue, 01 Jan 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Project Site · NASA Site

Overview

As a student researcher in NU’s RIVeR (Robotics and Intelligent Vehicles Research) Laboratory, I was initially tasked with organizing a team to design a concept for a new forearm, wrist, and hand for NASA’s R5 (Valkyrie) robot.

The concept replaces the humanoid design with an active tool change mechanism in the wrist, enabling Valkyrie to attach and detach with multiple “hands,” each with a specialized purpose.