Integrating IoT sensors with a small robotic arm — any real-world tips?

[Aria James]

Has anyone here tried hooking up simple IoT sensors to a small robotic arm (for example, triggering a pick-and-place action when a distance or motion sensor sees something)? I was reading a practical servo-control tutorial on The Engineering Projects (https://www.theengineeringprojects.com/2022/05/interfacing-servo-motor-with-raspberry-pi-pico-using-micropython.html
) and it made me wonder how easy it is to take that kind of work into a real-time setup.
I've also seen general guides on robotics that cover motor/actuator choices and control considerations, and a few Arduino forum threads and Raspberry Pi projects where people use ultrasonic/IMU sensors to trigger simple arm motions — but I'm wondering about practical issues like synchronization, latency, and safety when combining hobby MCUs with more serious robot frameworks. Any experiences, pitfalls, or simple patterns you'd recommend for a research-student level project?

[Johannes @ Robots in Architecture]

There really is no universal answer, a challenge is always getting data into an industrial system from small microcontrollers. For us, add-ons like an EtherCAT hat, have worked very well with KUKA robots, without requiring you to purchase any extra tech packages.

Best,
Johannes