RoboMaster 7-DoF Arm Engineer Robot
Embedded lead for a 7-axis robotic arm engineer robot with mecanum chassis. Built the full control stack from ROS2+MoveIt2 motion planning on the host PC down to real-time joint control on STM32.
Background
The engineer robot must autonomously pick up ore and exchange resources — tasks requiring precise 7-DoF arm control and reliable communication between a high-level planner and a real-time embedded controller.
What I Did
Implemented USB virtual serial port communication between the STM32 lower computer and the ROS2 upper computer, using ring buffers and DMA double-buffering (ping-pong) for reliable high-throughput data transfer with CRC validation in a dedicated FreeRTOS task. On the upper computer, built a ROS2 + MoveIt2 + KDL arm control module with full simulation in NVIDIA Isaac Sim. Used IKFast (URDF-generated) for inverse kinematics at 4 ms per solve, and KDL for forward kinematics to handle non-Pieper configurations. Built a custom teach pendant using absolute encoders to map controller positions to arm joint targets for high-precision teleoperation and data collection.
Challenges
Coordinating a 7-DoF arm with a moving mecanum chassis required careful frame transforms and latency management. The IKFast solver needed a clean URDF with accurate joint limits to avoid degenerate solutions near singularities.
Takeaways
2025 RoboMaster Super Combat — National 2nd Prize.
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