Advance in Electronic and Electric Engineering.

ISSN 2231-1297, Volume 3, Number 3 (2013), pp. 305-310

Research India Publications
http://www.ripublication.com/aeee.htm



Developing Manual Control for a Line Follower Robot


Lucky Gautam
1
, Rahul Kr. Verma
2
, Chinoy Sharma
3

1,3
Department of Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering
2
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering
Amity University, Noida, India.


Abstract

In this technologically advancing world the field of robotics has
boomed to a great extent. There are new implications done in different
kind of robots every second in the world. Navigation tools are required
to give senses to robot and there are wide ranges of navigation tools
available. This paper will focus upon improvising and removing
limitations of a black line following robot by giving it a manual control
when required. A practical implication of this has been verified by
doing a small experiment by constructing a black line following robot
using IR sensors and providing it a manual control.

Keywords: IR sensors, DPDT switch, Encoder, Decoder, adaptive
programming.


1. Introduction
A line following robot is a basic robot designed to follow a predetermined line or path.
Construction of this line varies from as simple as black line on the floor or as complex
as embedded lines, magnetic lines etc. In order to detect or trace the path, different
kind of navigation schemes or vision schemes are employed. These navigation
schemes may vary from as simple and cheap as IR sensors circuits to as complex and
expensive as vision circuits. The choice of which kind of navigation scheme is to be
employed depends fully on the requirements of the user. From industrial point of view
these line following robots are employed as goods carrier to drop the things from one
site to another where rails or conveyor belts are not possible to be created. A simple
black line following robot trace the black line using simple IR sensors but when it is on
the full white sheet or due to some error it leaves the path than it is difficult for the
robot to get back to the track and moves here and there. First this paper will guide on
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how to design a line following robot and then well concentrate on the main part that is
to give a manual control to it.


2. Procedure
2.1 Working principle
The sensor module used on the robot has two LED-IR sensors mounted on it. LED or
light emitting diodes used are semiconductor diodes and IR is also used as light
sensors. The module has a transmitter which transmits the light and a receiver to
receive or detect the reflection of light. If the color code beneath the sensors is white
(light reflector), then they will reflect the light but if the color is black (light absorber)
then the light wont be received by the receiver which turns off the sensor module.

2.2 How robot follows the line
The left sensor module is being connected to the left motor and the right sensor module
is connected to right motor. When the receiver of left sensor module receives the light
it turns the sensor module on and in turn the module turns the left side motor on and
same happen with the right sensor module and motor. This way when a left turn comes
up left sensors goes on pointing on the black line which results in no light received by
the sensor receiver and in result it turns off the left sensor module which turns off the
left motor. This way only right motor works and robot takes a left turn until both the
sensor modules turns on. The case is same with the robot taking a right turn.
The robot is using a high intensity LED and IR sensor.
This way LED illuminates the area under the IR so that IR sensor can detect the
reflected light. If IR sensor detects the light it will decrease its resistance and in case of
darkness it increases its resistance. Thus white surface reflects most of the light and
black absorbs the light. By this method the task of following a line is accomplished.


Fig. 1: Robot moving straight, left and right respectively.
Developing Manual Control for a Line Follower Robot 307

This way robot moves straight or turns left or right in accordance with the black
line and can track the line to fulfill the demands of the user.


3. Block Diagram for Line Follower Robot
3.1 Circuit Description


Fig. 2: Circuit of basic black line following robot.

In this circuit sensor, comparators, microcontroller, motor driver and motors are
involved to run a black line following robot. The basic work of each element is as
follow:-
Sensor: The sensor senses the reflected light from the surface and feeds the result
to the comparator. On white surface sensor gets the light reflected and on black the
light is not reflected. This result of getting the light reflected or not is sent to the
comparator.
Comparator: Comparator compares the analogue inputs from the sensors with a fixed
reference voltage. If this voltage is higher than the reference voltage than comparator
outputs a low voltage and if the voltage is lower than the reference voltage than it
outputs a high voltage to the decision making element that is the microcontroller. The
IC used of the comparator is LM358N.
Microcontroller: Microcontroller is programmed to make the robot move forward,
turn left or turn right based on the input coming from the comparator. The
microcontroller feeds the output to the motor driver.
Motor Driver: The current supplied by the microcontroller to is not sufficient to
drive the motor. Thus motor driver provides sufficient current to run motor. It can take
a maximum current of 600mA per channel which is more than enough to drive two
motors. The IC used for it is L293D.
Voltage Regulator: 7805IC gives the output of 5V from 9V to microcontroller and
motor driver.
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4. Experiment
Since we have a black line following robot ready but now we can see there are few
limitations with a line following robot that is in few cases it cant take any decision.
Suppose the robot goes on a plain white sheet due to some error and now rather than
tracking the line it will go straight and in case where line got break and a turn, robot
will again go straight rather than tracking the line. The best and the cheapest solution
to overcome these limitations will be to give a manual connection to the robot so that
in such conditions the robot can be made to go to the path manually. This manual
connection can be wireless or wired depending upon the compatibility of the user.
Providing a manual control is mechanically possible and it is quite easy.

Functionality of all the elements is already described and the description of new
elements added is as follow:-
Encoder: It converts the parallel input given by the user through switches into
series signal and then the signals are transmitted using a transmitter.
Decoder: It is used to decoder the received signal and retrieves the original signal
from it.
Transmitter: A transmitter used is TX 01 ASK module and it works on 434 MHz.
It will send the data which is being made in series by the encoder. We require a series
data for better transmission.
Receiver: A receiver used is RX 01 ASK module and it should be also chosen of
434 MHz. It will receive the encoded data sent by transmitter and further it will send it
to a decoder to get the original signal back.
This wireless remote control can be connected to both the motors which are used to
run the robot and this way we can control the robot manually but the question arises
that how can we control it this way when it is already having a microcontroller and a
whole circuit of line following.


Fig. 3: Circuit of providing manual control to the line follower robot.
Developing Manual Control for a Line Follower Robot 309

Thus when we have to control it manually we need to cut the power supply of the
line following robot circuit and to do that the best way will be to place a motor
between the voltage regulator and 9V supply so that we can control the motor and run
it in clockwise direction to complete the current loop and in anticlockwise direction to
break the current loop.
This way we can have a manual control of the robot and if turn on the motor which
controls the power supply loop, the loop gets completed and we are able to make the
robot work as a line following and once the robot is off the track or any such problem
occur we can reverse that motor to break the loop and now we can have a manually
controlled robot.


5. Conclusion
Since we acknowledged and came to know the problem or limitations of a simple
black line following robot and to overcome that we gave a manual control to the robot.
This way we were able to design a line following cum manual robot so that the user
can use it in either ways. Line following robots has already acquired market in
industries to carry goods from one site to another, it also work as guide at tourist places
and also it can work on dining tables to serve time to time requirements to people.
Thus, it became a time demand to overcome the limitations attached with this kind of
robot so that it can function for efficiently and in a better way and moreover the
method used to give manual control can be a universal method to give manual control
to any robot or required machinery.


6. Acknowledgement
This project is having lots of scope in future and it can be improved in various ways to
fulfill the tasks of user. I wish to express deep sense, extreme depth of gratitude
towards Rahul Kr. Verma, ECE Department, Amity University for invaluable helping
hand extended to me. The work cannot be finished in such a fine manner without his
help. I would also like to thank my HOD Dr. H.P Singh, EIE Dept. for the support and
encouragement he provided. Lastly I would thank my whole EIE Department to give
me such a wonderful platform to finish the project.


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