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An Autonomous Four Wheeled Robot Sangeetha Thomas EC Engineering Department Parul Institute of Engineering & Technology Vadodara ,INDIA [email protected] Asst Prof.Anuradha P. Gharge, EC Engineering Department Parul Institute of Engineering & Technology Vadodara ,INDIA [email protected] Abstract— Mobile robots are becoming a common sight nowadays. There are two major types of mobile robots – the wheeled and the legged mobile robots. Wheeled robots are more common as they are easier to design and build. The cost of building a wheeled robot is generally low. The wheeled robots are more suited to application on fairly even terrains than traversing on uneven or rough terrains. Legged robots, on the other hand, are less common, although the interests in them have been growing at a frantic pace over the past few years. Legged robots are more difficult to design and built as compared to the wheeled robot. This is due to the complexity in designing the actuators and joints... The cost of building a legged robot is also generally quite high. In this application we have selected a wheeled robot which has four wheels for movement. This paper discusses about the design of a wheeled robot that can be built at a minimum cost but at the same time without affecting the robot’s capability. The robot is capable of moving forward, backward, it can turn left and turn right. Keywords-wheeled robot, legged robot, actuators I. INTRODUCTION Robots are programmable physical machines that have sensors and actuators, and are given goals for what they should achieve in the world. Perception algorithms process the sensor inputs, a control program decides how the robot should behave given its goals and current circumstances, and commands are sent to the motors to make the robot act in the world. Some robots are mobile, but others are rooted to a fixed location. A robot is a machine that imitates the actions or appearance of an intelligent creature- usually a human & gathers information about its environment (senses) and uses that information (thinks) to follow instructions to do work (acts). Thus to qualify as a robot, a machine has to be able to do two things: 1) Get information from its surroundings 2) Do something physical–such as move or manipulate objects. Almost all robots are comprised of a movable body, wheels operated by motors, and parts which can be moved made of plastic or metal. The sections are coupled together with joints. Solenoids and electric motors are used as actuators to operate the robots, while hydraulic and pneumatic systems are also utilized for this purpose. Although the appearance and capabilities of robots vary, all robots share the features of a mechanical, movable structure under some form of autonomous control. Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. A high degree of autonomy is particularly desirable in fields such as space exploration, cleaning floors, mowing lawns, and waste water treatment. A fully autonomous robot has the ability to Gain information about the environment. Work for an extended period without human intervention. Move either all or part of itself throughout its operating environment without human assistance. Avoid situations that are harmful to people, property, or itself. II . AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS Autonomous robots are self supporting or in other words self contained. In a way they rely on their own ‘brains’. Autonomous robots run a program that gives them the opportunity to decide on the action to perform depending on their surroundings. They start out with a short routine and adapt this routine to be more successful at the task they perform. The most successful routine will be repeated as such their behavior is shaped. Autonomous robots can learn to walk or avoid obstacles they find in their way. Think about a six legged robot, at first the legs move at random, after a little while the robot adjusts its program and performs a pattern which enables it to move in a direction. Any Autonomous Robot consists of following essential parts: 1. Robot Chassis and actuators Includes wheeled or any type of chassis with all the necessary actuators fitted on the chassis to achieve desired goal. We mostly use DC geared motors as actuators. 13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
Transcript of An Autonomous Four Wheeled Robot - BVM Engineering Collge · An Autonomous Four Wheeled Robot...
An Autonomous Four Wheeled Robot
Sangeetha Thomas EC Engineering Department
Parul Institute of Engineering & TechnologyVadodara ,INDIA
Asst Prof.Anuradha P. Gharge, EC Engineering Department
Parul Institute of Engineering & TechnologyVadodara ,INDIA
Abstract— Mobile robots are becoming a common sight nowadays. There are two major types of mobile robots – the wheeled and the legged mobile robots. Wheeled robots are more common as they are easier to design and build. The cost of building a wheeled robot is generally low. The wheeled robots are more suited to application on fairly even terrains than traversing on uneven or rough terrains. Legged robots, on the other hand, are less common, although the interests in them have been growing at a frantic pace over the past few years. Legged robots are more difficult to design and built as compared to the wheeled robot. This is due to the complexity in designing the actuators and joints... The cost of building a legged robot is also generally quite high. In this application we have selected a wheeled robot which has four wheels for movement. This paper discusses about the design of a wheeled robot that can be built at a minimum cost but at the same time without affecting the robot’s capability. The robot is capable of moving forward, backward, it can turn left and turn right.
Keywords-wheeled robot, legged robot, actuators
I. INTRODUCTION
Robots are programmable physical machines that have sensors and actuators, and are given goals for what they should achieve in the world. Perception algorithms process the sensor inputs, a control program decides how the robot should behave given its goals and current circumstances, and commands are sent to the motors to make the robot act in the world. Some robots are mobile, but others are rooted to a fixed location. A robot is a machine that imitates the actions or appearance
of an intelligent creature- usually a human & gathers information about its environment (senses) and uses that information (thinks) to follow instructions to do work (acts).Thus to qualify as a robot, a machine has to be able to do two things:
1) Get information from its surroundings 2) Do something physical–such as move or manipulate objects. Almost all robots are comprised of a movable body, wheels operated by motors, and parts which can be moved made of plastic or metal. The sections are coupled together with joints.
Solenoids and electric motors are used as actuators to operate the robots, while hydraulic and pneumatic systems are also utilized for this purpose. Although the appearance and capabilities of robots vary, all robots share the features of a mechanical, movable structure under some form of autonomous control. Autonomous robots are robots that can perform desired tasks in unstructured environments without continuous human guidance. A high degree of autonomy is particularly desirable in fields such as space exploration, cleaning floors, mowing lawns, and waste water treatment. A fully autonomous robot has the ability to
Gain information about the environment.
Work for an extended period without human intervention.
Move either all or part of itself throughout its operating environment without human assistance.
Avoid situations that are harmful to people, property, or itself.
II . AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS
Autonomous robots are self supporting or in other words self contained. In a way they rely on their own ‘brains’. Autonomous robots run a program that gives them the opportunity to decide on the action to perform depending on their surroundings. They start out with a short routine and adapt this routine to be more successful at the task they perform. The most successful routine will be repeated as such their behavior is shaped. Autonomous robots can learn to walk or avoid obstacles they find in their way. Think about a six legged robot, at first the legs move at random, after a little while the robot adjusts its program and performs a pattern which enables it to move in a direction. Any Autonomous Robot consists of following essential parts:
1. Robot Chassis and actuators Includes wheeled or any type of chassis with all the necessary actuators fitted on the chassis to achieve desired goal. We mostly use DC geared motors as actuators.
13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India
National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
2. Electronics Electronics includes Sensors, motion control circuits, power management system etc.
3. Power Source Usually battery pack consisting of Lead acid, Nickel cadmium, and Nickel metal hydride or Lithium batteries is used.
4. Intelligence This is the most important part of the autonomous robots. Usually intelligence is achieved by using Microcontroller.
In this application we have selected an autonomous wheeled robot which has four wheels for movement.
III. PRELIMINARY DESIGN
The proposed robot for this project uses four motors as the actuators. In the design the proposed robot will use two motor each to control the front and rear legs. In addition to that, micro controller and sensors will be added to improve the robots capability.
The Robotic Unit is programmed to operate in three modes. They are: 1) Manual Mode or Remote Control operation mode. 2) Wall Following Mode (Left Wall) and 3) Fixed Mode (Path loaded through PC).
The controller which consists of an Atmega 16 microcontroller and appropriate electronic circuitry will be feed with input from sensors (analog distance sensor, metal detector sensor and smoke detector) and drive the four motors. Finally, this project is focusing on the programming aspect to control the robot’s movement. The suitable program arrangement needs to be programmed to ensure smooth movement of the robot and able to respond sensitively to the sensor. The autonomous robot, will be able to send the environmental status, the temperature condition, and if there is any obstacle on its path, and what is the obstacle in any remote place which is not reachable by the humans and this will be displayed on the LCD screen.This project can be divided into two parts, i.e. Robot end and user interface (Control) end. Robot is monitored and controlled from remote place.
Robot has an array of sensors for monitoring environmental status. Since it started to move, it will check whether there is any obstacle in its path and if there is any obstacle it will detect the obstacle material, and the current environmental condition of the place where the robot is situated and also the gripping force of the robot by means of PIR sensor. From the user end we will get the data acquisition of monitoring parameters at the robotic end and the system will automatically store the database of data acquired from other end at frequent interval of time (in seconds). Robot’s movements (Forward, Reverse, Left, and Right) will be
controlled via wireless medium. Zigbee-based Robot Localization and Control project uses wireless nodes to simultaneously localize and control the robot.The proposed robot consists of five major subsystems They are the mechanical structure, controller and software, drive system, sensory system and power supply system.
Mechanical structure
The mechanical structure is the whole chassis of the robot. The structure will form the base where all the components such as the motor, controller, sensors, and batteries are mounted. Some of the important features that the mechanical structure must possess are:
Rigid and stiffLightweightNon-corrosiveDurable.
Controller and software
The controller will act as the brain of the robot. It will control the movement of the robot based on the preloaded program as well as the feedback from the sensors. The following are some of the important features the have been identified for the controller:
FastSufficient number of input and output portsLow power consumptionEase of programmingAvailability
The software used in this application is AVR Studio where program is written in C language and Proteus software is used for the virtual simulation. The results for speed control of motor using Proteus Software is shown in the “Results” Section.
Drive system
The drive system will be the motor which will serve to move the robot. Among the important features that must be taken into account when choosing the drive system is:
TorqueWeightEase of control
Sensory system
The sensory system will be the eyes of the robot. It will help monitor the surroundings of the robot and feedback important information to the robot regarding its surroundings. With the
13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India
National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
information, the robot will then decide on its movements. The sensors have to be:
AccurateReliable and consistentFast
In this application we will be using Wall detection sensor, Metal Detector sensor and Smoke sensor.
Power supply system
The power supply will provide the robot the necessary energy to function. Since the robot is autonomous, portable power supply is needed. Among the important parameters that are important in choosing the power supply are:
� Power storage capacity� Weight� Cost� Size Here, we are using a Solar Panel of 10 watt to store the solar energy which will provide charge to the Lead Acid battery used. Hence the name is Solar Based Autonomous Robot.
IV. HARDWARE OF THE ROBOTIC PLATFORM AND REMOTE CONTROL PART:
Figure.1. Robotic Platform
Figure.2. Remote Control Unit
V. ROBOT’S ABILITIES
Once the robot characteristics have been identified, the next step is the analysis for identification of strengths and weakness. The robot is tested by moving it on flat surface and grass surface. From experiments conducted, robot was able to move perfectly on flat surface. However, difficulties occurred when the robot tried to move on grassed surface. The robot was still able to move, but the direction will be somewhat misaligned.
The sensitivities of the robot
The final process in the analysis stage is to test the alertness of the robot. In testing the alertness of the robot, the alertness of the sensor is tested earlier. It is found that the sensor was able to detect obstacle ahead in distance of 3cm and above in clear lightning. Therefore, for every analysis the maximum and minimum of alertness needs to be co-ordinated before the testing take place. Next the robot was activated and freely moved forward without controls. It is found that the robot was able to respond to obstacles in front. When the right sensor detected obstacles on the right, it turned to left direction and vice versa.
13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India
National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
VI. RESULTS OF SIMULATION IN PROTEUS, AND VISUAL BASIC.
In Figure-3, the output window in Proteus shows that the Speed of DC Motor is decremented and it gets displayed on the LCD screen too. In Figure-4, the speed of DC Motor is incremented and it is displayed on the LCD screen. Figures 6 to 8 show the output in Visual Basic 6.0.
VII. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
This paper discusses about the development of a four wheeled robot actuated by four motors. This is implemented using Atmega-16 microcontroller which was programmed using the C programming language to control the robot. The robot wassuccessfully built and tested as specified by the objective. Through the development of the project, many skills have been acquired. The skills are circuit design and interfacing hardware and software in computer. It should be noted that the project is carried out with limited resources and funding. Therefore, this robot is not appropriate to be marketed or commercialized. Although a four wheeled robot was successfully developed which met the objectives, however it is found that this robot still can be improved by implementing some modifications. For future work, the mechanical structure can be improved by building it with more joints and motors for mobility which would be suitable at any terrain. Moresensors can be placed at the rear and sides of the robot for more alertness.
Figure 3. Result of simulation in Proteus (Motor speed gets decremented)
Figure 4. Result of simulation in Proteus (Motor speed gets incremented)
Figure 5. Code window in VB
13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India
National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
Figure 6. Object window in Visual Basic after simulation.
Figure 7. Fixed mode output in Visual Basic.
Figure 8. Wall Following & Remote Control Mode output.
REFERENCES
[1] A Six Wheeled Solar Robot by MOHAMED SAIFUL B ZAINAL ABIDIN.[2] A Review on Robotics by Rodney Brooks, MIT, Version 4: March 17, 2009.[3] The Current State of Robotics: Post or Pre-Robotics? By Miguel A. Salichs, Carlos Balaguer, Robotics Lab, University Carlos III. Email id:{salichs, balaguer}@ing.uc3m.es.[4] History and Development of Robots by Christopher Haggis, Wagner College, May 2003.[5] FREGO Bot: Fully Rectangular Excellent Great Outstanding Bot, Fully autonomous exploration robot by Dave Ceddia, Mike Howlett, JimCensabella, Robot Design Lab Olsen Hall Room 306, UML Computer Science Department, Lowell MA, 01854.[6]Robotics: The Past, the Present and the Future By Shuzhi Sam GE, Director, Social Robotics Lab, Interactive Digital Media Institute, & Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore E-mail: [email protected].[7] ‘An Autonomous Four-Legged Robot' by AHMAD SAIFUDIN BIN ISKANDAR, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, MAY 2010.
13-14 May 2011 B.V.M. Engineering College, V.V.Nagar,Gujarat,India
National Conference on Recent Trends in Engineering & Technology
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