Mercury A1 Revolutionizing Robotics with Dexterity＆Control

Introduction

The Mercury series of robotic arms by Elephant Robotics represents a new product line aimed at industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing. These robotic arms are not only innovative in design but also utilize lightweight yet strong materials such as carbon fiber, aluminum alloys, and engineering plastics. Equipped with high-precision harmonic reducers, the launch of the Mercury series reflects Elephant Robotics' insights into the future trends of robot technology, aiming to meet the needs of various scenarios including industry, education, and research. These robotic arms not only demonstrate exceptional performance but also mark a significant advancement for Elephant Robotics in the global field of robotics technology.

In this article, we will delve into the unique design and advanced features of the Mercury A1, as well as its significant role across various industries, leading the way in future technology trends.

Mercury A1

Design and Structure

The Mercury A1 robotic arm is meticulously designed, showcasing a perfect blend of modern industrial aesthetics and high technology in its physical attributes. With dimensions of 98x128x640 mm, it embodies a compact and efficient design philosophy. In terms of material selection, the Mercury A1 utilizes lightweight carbon fiber, sturdy aluminum alloy, and high-performance engineering plastics. This combination of materials not only ensures the arm's durability and sturdiness but also significantly reduces its overall weight, enhancing its flexibility and ease of operation and movement. This robotic arm is a perfect representation of Elephant Robotics' profound understanding and innovative capabilities in the field of industrial automation.

Technical Specifications

The Mercury A1 boasts 7 degrees of freedom (7DOF), enabling it to move flexibly in narrow or complex spaces. It has a maximum working radius of 450 mm and is equipped with a high-precision harmonic reducer, ensuring precise motion control and stable operational performance. Additionally, Mercury A1's maximum payload capacity is 1kg, with a repeat positioning accuracy of up to ±0.05mm, making it highly suitable for applications requiring precise operations

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myPanel OS

The Mercury A1 is equipped with the built-in 'myPanel' operating system, specifically developed for the Mercury A1. It connects to the robotic arm via a 2-inch touchscreen, allowing users to quickly perform teaching, programming, deployment, and debugging without any additional hardware. This integrated control method significantly simplifies the operation process, making the Mercury A1 more user-friendly and easily adaptable to different scenarios. The arm can be used without programming and features functions like drag ＆ play, quick move, and motor condition checks.

Drag ＆ Play:

Directly guide the robotic arm by physical contact (pulling the arm) to replicate the desired movement trajectory.

Quick Move:

Allows for joint control and coordinate control of the robotic arm without changing its form.

Diverse Ecosystem

Operating System and Mainboard

The Mercury A1 robotic arm is embedded with an operating system based on the Ubuntu 20.04 MATE version, a mainstream open-source Linux distribution, providing stable and extensive functionality for the robotic arm. Additionally, its main control board utilizes the widely acclaimed Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi community is one of the largest hardware development communities globally, offering many interesting open-source projects and a wealth of resources.

Software Compatibility and Open Source Code

The Mercury A1 supports multiple mainstream programming languages and software platforms and is compatible with simulation software likeROS, Moveit, Gazebo, andMujoco. Elephant Robotics independently developed the open-source library pymycobot, which opens numerous APIs allowing users to easily access functionalities like arm torque, motor torque, joint control, and coordinate control.

Simulation software can be used to simulate the motion and behavior of the robotic arm, thereby assisting robot engineers in developing and optimizing robot control algorithms. Without physically operating the robotic arm, robot programs can be written and tested on a computer, saving time and costs and avoiding damage caused by errors in actual operation.

The simulation environment is also extensively used in education and research. Teachers and students can utilize simulation software to learn about the kinematics, dynamics, and control principles of robotic arms. MoveIt!, Mujoco, and Gazebo are three commonly used robotic arm simulation software. MoveIt and Gazebo are integrated within ROS (the world's largest open-source robot operating system). MoveIt is an open-source robot motion planning framework, providing various motion algorithms and tools. Gazebo is an open-source robot simulator, offering realistic physical simulation environments and a wide range of sensor models. Mujoco, a commercial physics engine and simulator, is renowned for its physical accuracy and high performance and can be used to simulate various physical systems and environments like robotic arms.

Hardware Equipment

The Mercury A1 robotic arm is equipped with a range of high-efficiency end effectors and sensing devices to meet the needs of various complex application scenarios. Here is a brief introduction to their specific functionalities:

1. Flexible Gripper: This delicately designed gripper can gently grasp objects, making it ideal for handling soft or delicate items like eggs and fruits.

2. Parallel Gripper: Specially designed for handling small, precise objects such as screws and needles. This gripper plays a key role in scenarios requiring high precision.

3. Adaptive Gripper: This gripper can automatically adjust its gripping range according to the width of the object being grasped, ensuring no damage to the object during the process. Its intelligent design enables the Mercury A1 to flexibly handle objects of various sizes and shapes.

4. 2D Camera Flagne: Serving as the “eyes” of the Mercury A1, this camera can perceive the surrounding environment and provide vital visual information, allowing the robotic arm to execute tasks more accurately.

5. 3D Camera Flagne: Provides three-dimensional spatial data, enabling the Mercury A1 to locate and manipulate objects more precisely. This camera is especially useful in complex environments, such as those requiring accurate spatial positioning and depth perception.

6. Suction Pump: Utilizes atmospheric pressure to pick up objects. The design of this suction pump enables the Mercury A1 to easily handle objects unsuitable for gripping, such as irregularly shaped or fragile items.

With these multifunctional accessories, the Mercury A1 can adapt to diverse operational needs and provide precise, reliable performance in various complex environments. This greatly expands the application range of the Mercury A1 robotic arm, making it an ideal choice for solutions across multiple fields.

Educational Example

In this example, the Mercury A1 robotic arm executes a vision recognition task using its 3D camera, a common application in robotics technology education. Utilizing the 3D camera, the arm accurately identifies wooden blocks and their attached QR codes in the scene. Once identified, the arm moves precisely to the location of the wooden block following programmed instructions and uses the suction pump for grasping. This application not only demonstrates the arm's capabilities in vision processing and object manipulation but also highlights its practicality in the field of education, especially in machine vision and automation learning. Students and researchers can learn how to integrate hardware (such as 3D cameras and robotic arms) with software (like image processing algorithms and control logic) to solve real-world problems through such examples.

Summary

We can see that the 7-axis design of the Mercury A1 robotic arm exemplifies its high degree of flexibility and capability for complex operations, marking a significant breakthrough in highly automated and precision operation domains. The innovation of Mercury A1 lies not only in its hardware design but also in the integrated software technologies. By combining with advanced vision systems, such as using 3D cameras for object recognition and spatial positioning, Mercury A1 is capable of performing a range of tasks from simple to complex, consistent with the multifunctionality of the 'Aloha' robot.

In the future, we can anticipate that Mercury A1 and similar multi-degree-of-freedom robotic arms will play roles in more fields, such as conducting complex assembly work, performing precise surgical operations, or even creating unique experiences in artistic performances.

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