Robot Arm: Fundamental Issues

Progress on the arm ultimately slowed when the project coincided with one of the busiest academic terms of my program. While J0 was successfully assembled and tested, the remaining joints—particularly J1 and J2—never progressed beyond early prototyping and printed components before the project had to be paused for exams and other priorities.

Even within the completed base joint, tuning the controller proved difficult. The low mass of the partially assembled arm combined with the relatively low control update rate made stable PID tuning challenging. If revisiting the project today, I would likely redesign much of the system—potentially moving to BLDC motors and a more capable controller. I would also restructure the electronics into smaller, modular PCBs rather than the single large board used in the original design, which became quite cramped and difficult to manage.