Design and Control of a 3DOF Robotic Manipulator for Full-Body Scanning Application

Ensuring airport security has always been crucial for national security. While advancements in security technology have improved the detection of non-metallic and other materials, concerns around health and privacy violations have been highlighted. This has led to the need for more user-friendly technology. In this paper, we present a new approach to address the challenges of manual body scanning by designing a robotics manipulator. The configuration chosen for this application is RPR to completely cover the body from the front and back, top to bottom, and also the extended arm while scanning. First, the design of the manipulator is done as needed, and its kinematics is calculated using the DH parameters of the manipulator configuration. The kinematics is then used to calculate the Jacobian and dynamics of the manipulator to understand the relation between joint forces/torques and parameters. Based on the application, a trajectory is generated in MATLAB. A PD controller-based control system is designed and validated using the MATLAB simulation. The results contribute to designing and controlling a robotic manipulator for a contactless full-body scanning application.