Design of a Laser Range Finder for End Perception of Robot Arm

In order to improve the operation and the end perception abilities of light-weight robot arm, a micro laser range finder is developed, which is highly integrated with a wide range and a shorter minimum measurement range. The range finder is designed based on the triangulation ranging theory. It adopts the linear CCD (charge-coupled device) as the light sensor, and the FPGA (field-programmable gate array) as the main controller chip, and the optical system of the sensor is designed according to the distribution requirements of the resolution. Thus, the range finder has a wide measurement range, a shorter minimum measurement range and a high measuring speed. To realize the high integration and miniaturization design, the range finder utilizes the design concept of the optics, mechanism and electricity unitization, which adopts the flexible and foldable PCB (printed circuit board) circuit, miniature optics units and miniature mechanical packaging. The measuring range of the range finder is 25mm ～ 350 mm, size is 47mm×50mm ×15 mm, mass is 70 g and the measuring time is 1 ms. The experimental results show that the laser range finder is easy to be integrated in the robot arm control system and suitable for end perception, and improves the light-weight robot arm end positioning accuracy.