Gesture-Driven LEGO robots

In this short survey and case study we want to present our research experience through the project developed by our team, that involves the building of a LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 robotic arm and tracked robot car which mimics the motion of the human arm and legs. We used 3 interconnected LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 bricks to reach the desired degrees of freedom. Using a Kinect sensor, the system detects the motion of the human user’s arm and creates the skeletal image of the arm. Coordinate geometry and different approximation methods are used to calculate the rotation angles between the bones connecting the joints. In our project the key is inverse kinematics, whitch makes use of the kinematics equations to determine the joint rotation parameters that provide a desired position for each of the robot’s end-effectors – arms and legs (wheels). The combined motion of the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 motors results in a complete robotic forward or backward motion and arm movement which is a perfect mimic of the human arm movement.