e-Yantra Robotics Competition

eYRC#1559-FF

Team leader name

College
Email
Theme assigned
Date

Scope

Mr. Vaibhav Vasant Bhosale

BharatiyaVidya Bhavan's
Sardar Patel College Of Engineering,
Mumbai - 400 058.
vaibhav9428@gmail.com
Fire Fighting Robot
21/12/2014

(5)

State the scope of the theme assigned to you.

In todays highly congested and complex cities, a small fire can cause serious threat to
life and infrastructure. In many offices or houses fire starts when someone is either sleeping
or not present. So our task is to design and build a system that detect and extinguish a fire
by its own. Such system include robots that
can be thrown into the fire site to inspect the situation (to detect the fire source)
And extinguish fire in toxic and smoky environment.
By the use of Autonomous Firefighting Robots, people and property can be saved at a
much faster rate with minimizing the damage caused by the fire.
The firefighting theme involve making a robot which can follow a black strip on a white
floor background and navigate through the entire apartment. The robot has to first
detect fire in a room, then extinguish the all fire in an apartment without damaging it.

Building Modules

(5)

Identify the major components in your robotic system provided required for designing a
solution to the theme assigned.
Electronic System:
1. Sensors:
White line sensors
IR sensor (Analog IR Proximity and SHARP IR distance sensor)
2. Micro-Controller (ATmega2560 master and ATmega8 slave)
3. Signal conditioning unit (ADC etc.)
Power Supply: 9.6V rechargeable Nickel Metal Hydride battery
Mechanical System:
1. Actuators [Motors]:
Two DC geared motors for locomotion of robot
Servo and Stepper Motors
2. Other structural component like metal strips for mechanism

Actuators

(10)

List all the actuators present on Fire Bird V robot. Besides the existing actuators, please
mention the additional actuators that may be required for designing the robotic system in
your theme if any.
Fire Fighting Robot requires actuators as following:
Actuator already present on Fire bird:
1. DC geared motors (75 rpm): They are used for primary motion of Robot in the arena.
They provide maximum speed of 24cm/s.
2. Servo Motor (00 - 1800 rotation): As needed by mechanism for detecting the fire and
dropping a magnet in Deposition slot to extinguishing it.
Explain the mechanism for controlling the actuators on your robot.
Mechanism for controlling the actuators:
1. DC geared motors
These motors are controlled by L293D dual motor driver which enable velocity
and direction control using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) Technique.
White line sensor (for detecting black strip) and IR distance sensor (for detecting
room wall) reading would decide the motion of this DC motors

2. Servo Motor
The microcontroller board has three Servo connectors. The servo motor will
move between 0 to 180 given an 8 bit value between 0x15 and 0x65 (in hex).
White line sensor (present on arm for detecting fire) reading would decide the
motion of servo motor.

Environment sensing

(10)

Explain the functioning of environment sensing technique used by Fire Bird V robot in
your theme.
1. White Line sensors:

(Present at bottom) helps the robot move across the arena along the line. The
three line sensors give different reading on black and on white surface. A logic
can be written depending on this values of the sensors such that the robot
moves along the line and self-orients itself when it deviates from the line.

(Mounted on arm) helps the robot to detect fire, represented by Red LED. As this
LED are glowing to signify fire in room, they emits light. This light is receive by
white line sensor and they tells that fire is present.
2. Sharp IR range sensors:
Depending on the values of the IR range sensors the operation of the different
actuators can be controlled. IR range sensors gives distance of a surface depending
on the angle of reception of the light and thus are more accurate. It help to sense
the door opening of the room while traversing the arena.
3. IR proximity Sensors:
The proximity sensors provided with the robot gives distance depending on the
intensity of the received light. They are used to maintain a safe distance from the
Thermocol walls to prevent any damage to the arena.

Power Management

(5)

Explain the power management system required for a robot in general and for Fire Bird V
robot in particular.
Dc motors: They are powered by internal v mot supply, a L293D IC is a motor driver
IC which is used to provide a maximum of 600 mA of continuous and 1A of starting
current to the two motors.
Servo motors: They require 5-10 volts supply and 0.5 to 1 amp of current depending
on its application
Sensors: On board sensors are supplied by the battery connected. 5 v supply is used
to power the IR range sensors which a supply an additional of 400 mA of current for
external load. While a 3.3 v supply is used to power the white line sensors with an
additional supply capacity of 100mA.
Since only few component are in use during primary testing, so the current
requirement is small and can be provide by AP mode. But for final testing we have to use BP
mode as heavy current might be required by robot.

Navigation Scheme

(10)

Explain in brief the basic navigation technique for path traversal in the arena. Explain the
concept and list the components required for basic navigation.
The list of components for basic navigation:
White line sensor
Sharp IR distance sensor
Servo actuators
DC geared motors
The White line sensors available at the bottom and SHARP IR distance sensor of the
fire bird V are used for navigation across the arena along the line or Wall. The SHARP IR
range sensors would help the robot to detect door opening of room and avoid collision with
walls. The bot will start with checking each room in predefined order. First it will find out
door to enter the room by using SHARP IR sensor, then traversing the room it has to detect
fire (glowing LED) with the help of white line sensor mounted on arm driven by servo. Once
detected, the robot will drop Magnet in deposition slot using some servo driven mechanism,
then move to next room and so on till all fires in all room are extinguished.

Testing your knowledge (Based on rulebook and tutorial)

(10)

Explain the sensor/s needed for sensing the fire modules. How will you control the
sensor/s through Fire Bird V.?
The Red LED are used to signify the fire. The light emitted by glowing LED can be sense by
white line sensor. The Fire Bird V supports 7 white line sensors. Since in our theme we are
using only 3 white line sensors at bottom to sense the black strip. Thus, remaining white line
sensors can be used for detecting whether the LED is glowing or not.
Controlling Extra White line sensor:
The extra white line sensors 4, 5, 6 and 7 are supported by ATmega8. To use those sensors,
The Jumper J4 needs to be connected. Thus, the required data of White line sensor 4, 5, 6
can be access from ADC0, ADC1, and ADC2 of ATmega8. Also, interference of this sensor
with their own LED is needed to avoid, This can be done by switching off the transmitters of
the White line sensor as in this case the led Fire module are acting as a transmitter.
Assemble all the five fire modules according to the tutorial given. When you have
assembled all the fire modules, take a picture with all the LEDs glowing and paste it
below. Please report any problem in the LED circuits.
I) Paste picture over here.

II) Report your problems if any of the LED array circuits was not working.
We have only 4 working fire module. The LED array1 (LED1 and LED2) of 5th fire module is
not working as shown in picture above. The Main circuit and LED array2 (LED3 and LED4) of
5th module are fine working. Also, all the reed switches are working.
Turning off the LED Circuits verified:
All 5

4
3
2
1
None

Challenges

(5)

1. The robot should be able to distinguish between the white and the black surface. If
the black surface suddenly ends, the robot should keep on moving in the direction it
last moved until the black line is again there.
2. To detect the room wall and door opening, so as to enter the room for surveillance
3. To detect, stop and extinguish fire and restart only after making sure that the fire
has been extinguished.
4. Power Management: We need to take into consideration current and voltage ratings
of actuator and sensors, and control their switching so that they are off when not in
use thus preventing drainage of excess power.
5. We would require at least 2 servo (1 for moving sensor to detect fire, 1 for dropping
magnet) and the major challenge would be to manage their order of operation while
navigating in room.