Vol.12 (2022) No. 6 ISSN: 2088-5334 Performance Analysis of 4-DOF RPRR Robot Manipulator Actuation Strategy for Pick and Place Application in Healthcare Environment Hadha Afrisal a,c,* , Ahmad Didik Setiyadi a , Munawar Agus Riyadi a,c , Rifky Ismail b,c , Olimjon Toirov d , Iwan Setiawan a a Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Diponegoro, Tembalang, Semarang, 50275, Indonesia b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Diponegoro, Tembalang, Semarang, 50275, Indonesia c PUI-PT CBIOM3S, Universitas Diponegoro, Tembalang, Semarang, 50275, Indonesia d Department of Electrical Machine, Tashkent State Technical University, Tashkent, 100095, Uzbekistan Corresponding author: * hadha.afrisal@elektro.undip.ac.id Abstract— Direct and indirect physical contact of humans and objects become the main medium of transmissible diseases such as COVID-19. Some strategies have been proposed to mitigate the risks of infections by minimizing physical contact, such as using robotics technology. Tele-robotics is one of the sub-fields in robotics that aims to implement physical surrogates for monitoring and controlling robots from remote distances, either autonomous, semi-autonomous, or manually guided. This paper discusses experimental research for evaluating the performance of a 4-DOF robot manipulator for pick and place tasks on small medical objects, such as test tubes in table-top scenarios. The robot manipulator is designed as an RPRR manipulator and is equipped with a gripper attached to its end- effector. Inverse kinematics and trajectory planning methods have been successfully implemented in real-time. The inverse kinematic method utilizes a pseudo-inverse Jacobian solver, and the trajectory generation utilizes a sigmoid function. The performance analysis results show that pick and place missions have been demonstrated with minimum tolerable position error, which is not more than 3.5 mm. The robot manipulator can satisfy high precision during repetitive experiments and maintain its accuracy in picking and placing standard test tubes from one rack to another within its working space. The smooth trajectories of the end-effector are achieved by implementing the sigmoid function. Thus, it satisfies the requirement for handling objects with minimum vibrations even during the actuation process with maximum speed. Keywords— Robot manipulator; actuation strategy; pick and place; healthcare assistive robot. Manuscript received 3 Nov. 2021; revised 9 Jan. 2022; accepted 4 May. 2022. Date of publication 31 Dec. 2022. IJASEIT is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License. I. INTRODUCTION Human-to-human physical contact or physical contact with infectious objects is the primary means of transmission for infectious diseases such as COVID-19. Despite the utilization of complete Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the infection rate of some communicable diseases remains soaring, particularly within intra-hospital environments and over-crowded healthcare facilities or laboratories [1]. The case of re-infections of specific communicable diseases is quite high for intra-hospital cases [2]. In order to mitigate the risks of contagion, telerobotics technologies can be potentially utilized in medical and healthcare facilities [3], [4]. There are various approaches to deploying unmanned systems, such as telerobotics in the healthcare environment, to minimize human-to-human and human-to-objects physical contact. Robotics, automation, and cyber-physical systems can be adopted to assist medical workers in risky tasks in contagious scenarios [5]. There are some approaches to robot deployment in healthcare, such as (1) disinfection and cleaning, (2) logistics and services, (3) telemedicine and telepresence, and (4) detection and control [6]. Autonomous robots and telerobotics applications can potentially be deployed in handling contagious materials in a healthcare environment to minimize the risks of transmissible disease [7]. Tele-robotics is a sub-field of robotics that aims to develop robots and autonomous systems that can interact with operators from a remote distance, either it is guided or unguided [5]. Tele-robotic systems in the medical field are widely applied in diagnostic procedures and treatments, such as medical interventions carried out remotely. This mechanism guarantees no physical contact between doctors/medical workers and patients [7]. 2258