DexCo Teleoperation System

2025 October-Present Status: Ongoing Project at Mechanical Systems Control (MSC) Lab, so more to come later! This project is currently advised by advised by Dr. Junda Huang, Dr.Jianshu Zhou and Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka.

Overview

I developed the electrical and software infrastructure to enable teleoperation of the DexCo soft robotic hand. The system maps human hand movements (captured via magnetic encoders) to a bank of syringe pumps that hydraulically actuate the robotic fingers.

Contributions

1. Embedded Firmware (ESP32 / C++)

I wrote the firmware for an ESP32 microcontroller to manage low-level motor control and sensor acquisition.

• Communication Protocol: Designed a custom Serial ASCII protocol to handle high-frequency telemetry (40Hz) and command parsing (e.g., p3, FOLLOW, PID config).
• Closed-Loop Control: Implemented a PID controller on the microcontroller to regulate syringe position based on encoder feedback, ensuring the hydraulic pressure matches the operator’s hand pose.
• Sensor Integration: Wrote I2C drivers to read 6x AS5600 magnetic encoders using multiplexers to track joint angles.
• Safety: Implemented hard-coded safety limits (SAFE_MIN / SAFE_MAX) to prevent syringe over-extension and mechanical damage.

2. Electrical Integration

• PCB Interfacing: Wired and integrated the ESP32 Feather V2 with a custom PCB and breadboard prototyping setup to drive the PWM motor controllers.
• Signal Routing: Managed I2C bus wiring (SDA/SCL) and PWM channel mapping for 6 degrees of freedom.

3. Desktop Control Software (Python / PyQt5)

I built a comprehensive desktop dashboard to visualize system performance and control experiments.

• Tech Stack: Python, PyQt5 for the GUI, and pyqtgraph for high-performance real-time plotting.
• Teleoperation Logic: Implemented a “Follow Mode” (Master/Slave) where the software maps real-time encoder data to pump position setpoints, allowing for direct human-in-the-loop control.
• Data Logging: Integrated CSV logging for capturing pressure, position, and encoder angles for system analysis.