The Atlas Project

The Atlas Project started as a "simple" retrofit to bring a handful of old Atlas-II robotic arms, built in the 1980s, into the modern age of computing, as a low-cost solution for robotics trainers. The initial challenge with the project was reverse engineering the functionality of the original control system, with the only documentation available being a technical manual and a user manual, both lacking sufficiently detailed information to determine the bit-level operation of the hardware. Through experimentation the function of the circuit was deduced, and a testing setup was constructed to begin using LabVIEW, a data acquisition and control programming environment developed by National Instruments, to design a control system using a USB Data Acquisition module (DAQ) as a replacement for their "micro card." LabVIEW was chosen as the programming environment for the flexibility of the programs, called virtual instruments (VIs), the documentation tools and the graphical programming interface. In the years since the retrofit process began, this project has undergone multiple revisions. The driving force of the project was to reduce the cost of teaching hands-on industrial robotics, and give students the tools to apply their knowledge in a tangible way. College of Education & Professional Studies Presentation Award Winner.