Maze solving by using BOE BOT Mobile Robot

NAME

: Akram Mansoor Ali

STUDENT NO

: TP024367

INTAKE

: UC3F1310ME

MODULE CODE

: EE010-3.5-3

NAME OF LECTURER

: Ms.ILANOR MUHAINI

DATE DUE

: 5/3 2014

Contents
Table Of Figures____________________________________________________________________3
Introduction________________________________________________________________________4
Objective___________________________________________________________________________5
Tasks to be done___________________________________________________________________6
Applications of Mobile Robot________________________________________________________7
Types of mobile robot_______________________________________________________________8
Wheels____________________________________________________________________________8
Tracks____________________________________________________________________________9
Advantages______________________________________________________________________10
Disadvantages___________________________________________________________________10
Legs____________________________________________________________________________10
An increasing number of robots use legs for mobility. Legs mobile robot are often
good for robots that must navigate the terrain is very uneven. Most amateur robot
is designed with six legs, which allows the robot to be statically balanced
(balanced at all times at 3 feet). Robots with legs are a little more difficult to
balance.________________________________________________________________________10
Advantages______________________________________________________________________11
Disadvantages___________________________________________________________________11
Arms and Grippers______________________________________________________________11
Advantages______________________________________________________________________12
Disadvantages___________________________________________________________________12
Navigation methods used by mobile robots________________________________________12
Mobile Robot Description__________________________________________________________13
Boe-Bot Robot___________________________________________________________________13
Microcontroller (Basic Stamp 2)_________________________________________________14

Servos__________________________________________________________________________14
Board of Education______________________________________________________________15
QTI sensors Infrared Line Follower_______________________________________________16
Program Concept for maze solving________________________________________________17
Program Description______________________________________________________________18
Discussion________________________________________________________________________23
References________________________________________________________________________24

Table Of Figures
Figure 1 Maze______________________________________________________________________6
Figure 2 Boe-BOt Mobile Robot______________________________________________________7
Figure 3 Wheels Mobile Robot_______________________________________________________9
Figure 4 Tracks Mobile Robot______________________________________________________10
Figure 5 Legs Mobile Robot________________________________________________________11
Figure 6 Arms and Grippers Mobile Robot__________________________________________12
Figure 7 Boe-Bot Robot____________________________________________________________14
Figure 8 Microcontroller___________________________________________________________15
Figure 9 Servos____________________________________________________________________15
Figure 10 Ultrasonic sensor________________________________________________________16
Figure 11 Board of Education______________________________________________________16
Figure 12 QTI sensors Infrared Line Follower_______________________________________17
Figure 13 MAZE___________________________________________________________________18

Introduction
Robotics is technology that deals with the design, construction, operation and application of
robots. Robots are machines device and it program to perform task and interact with its
environment, without the use of the aid of human interaction. It can work by program them or
give them task and they will do it. In order to call the device robot it must contains three main
parts a controller (a brain); mechanical parts to help it move (robots can be powered by air,
water, or electricity), and sensors that can tell the robot about its surroundings. These parts work
together to control how a robot functions. Mobile robotics is a multidisciplinary field involving
computer science and engineering. Overcoming automatic system design, it is located at the
intersection of artificial intelligence, computational vision, and robotics. A mobile robot is an
automatic machine that has the ability to moving in a certain environment. It can be controlled
by the human or automatic. Also its able to perform certain tasks set for it and achieved within
some given limitation. The robot needs to have the ability to navigate in order to do this.
Navigation capabilities of each mobile robot must accurately and within a certain range, and this
will increasingly depend on the size of the robot and the robot work to be done. Mobile robot
must have a locomotion system in order to make it move. This system gives our mobile robot the
ability to move forward, backward and take turns it may also provide for climbing up and down.
The concept of locomotion invariably needs rotational motion. This involves conversion of
electrical energy into mechanical energy, which we can easily achieve using electrical motors.
The issue is to control these motors to give the required speed and torque. The main aim of this
assignment is to understand the underlying basic robotic concept which is the Parallax Boe-Bot
robot and make it work.

Objective
The objective of this assignment is to program mobile robot to navigate through the maze shown
below and it also will cultivate students knowledge in areas such as sensors, programming and
control system.

Figure 1 Maze

Tasks to be done
1. To assemble a mobile robot (students will be provided with a package of robot parts.)
2. To program a mobile robot in solving the maze (composed of walls) and line maze.

BOE - BOT can navigate through a maze whose dimensions are given but to do that , the
programmer must still take into account how long the BOE - BOT should continue to perform
certain steps to navigate through the maze . For example, if it consists of a maze 1m straight
line , curve to the right and then straight line 2m , you must notify the BOE - BOT how long it
should continue to move forward before turning , and then for how long it should continue to
move forward after the turn. As a result, the program is highly dependent on the maze that you
are working with, and for each maze you have to navigate around the code must be changed .
For this task , you will use the PING sensors ( ultrasonic ) to navigate through the maze with
walls , and you will build a program that will allow you to navigate the robot through the maze
of any kind, regardless of the way the BOE - BOT should follow . The fastest mobile robot to
accomplish the task will be given the highest score

Figure 2 Boe-BOt Mobile Robot

Applications of Mobile Robot

The use of autonomous mobile robots has increased recently due to the increase in flexibility,
reliability, speed, accuracy, and many other advantages that have robots. Humans have a limited
amount of stamina and reaction, so it is not possible to remain alert to the danger all the time.
The range of potential applications is very large for a mobile robot. These include agricultural
robotics applications, routine material transport in factories, warehouses, office buildings and
hospitals, indoor and outdoor security patrols, inventory verification, handling hazardous
materials, hazardous site cleanup, underwater applications, and various military applications.

Areas of application:
1) Support to medical services SERVICE ROBOTS
Transportation of food, medication, medical exams,
Automation of pharmacy service
2) Automatic cleaning of (large) areas
Supermarkets, airports, industrial sites
Glass cleaning
Domestic vacuum-cleaner
3) Client support
Museum tours, exhibitions guides
4) Agricultural and Forests
Fruit and vegetable picking, fertilization, planting
Cleaning, fire preventing, tree cutting.
Like this autonomous robots become more prominent in our lives, the need to design and
implement a robust system that responds intelligently to the environment a priority in robotics.
Autonomous robots have proven useful, but they have not proven completely safe. If we invest
more resources into robotics, we will be able to develop a robot that is equipped with a
navigation system that is stable.

Types of mobile robot

Classification of the mobile robots depends on how the robot will look like and what is the task
that can perform. The types of robots possible are unlimited and there are many types of mobile
robot

Wheels
Wheel far the most popular method of providing mobility robots and robots are used to
encourage many different sizes and robotic platforms. Wheels can be just about the size, of the
fraction of an inch to 10 to 12 inches. Tabletop robots tend to have smaller wheels, typically less
than 2 inches in diameter. Robots can have just about any number of wheels, though 3 and 4 are
the most common. Usually three wheeled robot using two wheels and casters at one end. More
complex two-wheeled robot using gyroscopic stabilization. It is rare that a wheeled robot using
nothing but skid steering (like that of the tank). Rack and pinion steering as found on a car
requires too many parts and the complexity and cost more than most of the profits.

Figure 3 Wheels Mobile Robot

Advantages
- Usually low-cost
- Simple design and construction
- Near infinite different dimensions cater to your specific project
- Six wheels can replace a track system
- Diameter, width, material, weight, tread etc. can all be custom to your needs
- Excellent choice for beginners
Disadvantages
- May lose traction (slip)
- Small contact area (small rectangle or line)

Tracks
Tracks (or footprint) are similar to what are used tanks. The best thing to drive the robot used
outdoors and in soft ground. Although the track does not provide the added "power", they reduce
slippage and more evenly distribute the weight of the robot, making them useful for loose
surfaces such as sand and gravel. Most people tend to agree that the tank tracks added
"aggressive" look to the robot as well.

Figure 4 Tracks Mobile Robot

Advantages
- Constant contact with the ground prevents slipping that might occur with wheels
- Evenly distributed weight helps your robot tackle a variety of surfaces
Disadvantages
- When turning, there is a sideways force that acts on the ground; this can cause damage to the
surface the robot is being used on, and cause the tracks to wear.
- Not many different tracks are available (robot is usually constructed around the tracks)
- Increased mechanical complexity and connections

Legs
An increasing number of robots use legs for mobility. Legs mobile robot are often good for
robots that must navigate the terrain is very uneven. Most amateur robot is designed with
six legs, which allows the robot to be statically balanced (balanced at all times at 3 feet).
Robots with legs are a little more difficult to balance.

Figure 5 Legs Mobile Robot

Advantages
- Closer to organic/natural motion
- Can potentially overcome large obstacles and navigate very rough terrain
Disadvantages
- Increased mechanical, electronic and coding complexity
- Lower battery size despite increased power demands
- Higher cost to build

Arms and Grippers

Arms and grippers are the best way for a robot to interact with the environment it is exploring.
Simple robot arm can have only one movement, while more complex arm may have a dozen or
more unique degrees of freedom.

Figure 6 Arms and Grippers Mobile Robot

Advantages
- Very simple to very complex design possibilities
- Easy to make a 3 or 4 degree of freedom robot arm (two joints and turning base)
Disadvantages
- Stationary unless mounted on a mobile platform
- Cost to build is proportional to lifting capability

Navigation methods used by mobile robots

Mobile robots dont have the ability to move in a certain environment without a proper
navigation system. It's easy to make the robot move, but it is not easy to make it move according
to the situation. Mobile robot should be able to follow the behavior of human drivers because of
the way it was programmed. The navigation system is composed of three parts: behavioral
constraints - avoiding local, global goal -seeking behavior, and coordination behavior. Behavior
problems focusing on avoiding obstacles in the sensing range of sensors attached to the robot .
Global goal it makes the robot just focus on achieving the goal position. The robot will ignore
the obstacles. Finally, Behavior coordination system is what makes this a unique navigation
system. If we want the robot to focus on safe, he will focus on avoiding obstacles. If we want the
robot to reach the goal quickly, it will ignore the obstacles that are not considered to be very
dangerous. This means that the robot will choose a path that corresponds to the user's preference
robot.

Mobile Robot Description

Boe-Bot Robot
The Boe-Bot is a basic robot designed by Parallax and its a short name f or Board of Education
robot that combines variety topics of electrical, mechanics, electronics and problem solving. It

consists of built-breadboard that can be used in conjunction with a computer program. The
circuit of 16 pins that line in the breadboard in the left side can be programmed. The pins have
two states 0 which mean false or 1 which mean true. In order to run the wheels there are two
servos motor connected to the robot through the pin 12 for the right servo and pin 13 for the left.

Figure 7 Boe-Bot Robot

Microcontroller (Basic Stamp 2)

Microcontroller is considering the brain of the Boe-bot its because its connecting and
controlling every part of the robots. Most of the programs are transferred to the microcontroller
which will transfer it to the other parts to start moving the boe-bot to the desired path and
operating as programmed.

Figure 8 Microcontroller

Servos
The servos, or the wheels, are what allow the Boe-Bot to move. The CRS (Continuous Rotation
Servos) on the Boe-Bot use an analog signal to encode the rotation rate. Each servo is controlled
by three input wires: the red wire is usually connected to the power supply (Vdd), the black wire
is

Figure 9
Servos

usually connected to the ground (Vss) and the white wire is usually connected to the controlling
signal (in this case pin 12 for the right servo and pin 13 for the left).

Ultrasonic sensor
Ultrasound is an acoustic wave that has very high frequency and its beyond human hearing. Its
frequency range between 20Hz and 20Khz. Ultrasound has many characteristics that make it so
useful in our life and led to use in several electronics applications. Ultrasound waves can be
produced with high directivity and they have lower propagation speed than light or radio waves.

Figure 10 Ultrasonic sensor

Board of Education
Its attached to the robots body and some other parts such as the servo motors, sensor, battery
pack, and microcontroller. Thought the board of education the microcontroller can transfer the
program and codes to the other
robot parts.

Figure 11 Board of
Education

QTI sensors Infrared Line Follower

Figure 12 QTI sensors Infrared Line

Follower
The QTI infrared line follower as shown in the figure above is made of eight infrared emitter and
receiver pairs for high precision line following application (Parallax, 2013). The kit is uses the
QTI infrared 8 eight infrared emitter to enhance the line following capability of the Boe-bot. The
eight infrared included sensors to the underside of the boe-bot chassis and adjust the position to
detect lines of different widths. The QTI sensors for close-proximity infrared detect black lines in
order to follow the white line. When the surface of the path is white the IR light up to detect the
white colour. This sensor communicates with the Boe-Bot thought a single bit 0 for low or 1 for
high

Program Concept for maze solving

As mentioned before, Mobile robots dont have the ability to move in a certain environment
without a proper navigation system. By using program language called Basic Stamp Editor
Mobile robot should be able to follow the behavior of human drivers because of the way it was
programmed. We will use the Basic Stamp Editor to write programs that the BASIC STAMP
module will run. Also we can use this software to display messages sent by the BASIC Stamp
that help to understand what it sense. Getting started with BASIC Stamp microcontroller
modules is similar to getting started with a brand-new PC or laptop. The first things that most
people have to do is download the software then plug it in the boe-bot by using serial cable or
USB port, test some software, and write the commands.

Figure 13 MAZE

From the figure above it shows that the BOE-BOT could navigate through a maze whose
dimensions were given but for doing that, programmer had to keep account of how long the
BOE-BOT should keep performing a certain move in order to navigate through the maze. For
example, if the maze was composed of a 1m straight line, a curve to the right and then a 2m
straight line, you had to tell the BOE-BOT how long it should keep moving forward before
turning, and then for how long it should keep moving forward after the turn. As a consequence,
the program is highly dependent on the maze that we were working with, and for each maze that
we had to navigate the entire code had to be changed.

Program Description
'{$STAMP BS2}
'{$PBASIC 2.5}

'[ PIN connections I/O ]'

RightServo

PIN

13

' Right Servo Pin

LeftServo

PIN

12

' Left Servo Pin

Ping_fron

PIN

' PING))) Front Sensor Pin

Ping_lef

PIN

' PING))) Left Sensor Pin

'[ Variables declaration ]'

distance_front

VAR

Word

' Distance Of Object in Front

distance_left

VAR

Word

' Distance Of Object at Left

pulseCount

VAR

Byte

' Measuring Turns

'[ Program Code ]'

Main:
DO
GOSUB Ping_front
GOSUB Ping_left
IF (distance_front > 15 ) AND (distance_left < 20) THEN '
IF (distance_left > 10) THEN 'adjusted left
PULSOUT 13, 650
PULSOUT 12, 650
ELSEIF (distance_left < 10) THEN 'adjusted right
PULSOUT 13, 850
PULSOUT 12, 850
ENDIF
GOSUB Forward_Pulse
ELSEIF (distance_front < 20 ) AND (distance_left < 25) THEN
GOSUB Turn_Right

'turn left

ELSEIF (distance_front > 20 ) AND (distance_left > 20) THEN

GOSUB Turn_left
ENDIF

PAUSE 20

'turn left

LOOP

'[ Distance Calculating ]'

Ping_front:

'Check front distance

PULSOUT Ping_fron, 5

'Activate PING)))

PULSIN Ping_fron, 1, distance_front

distance_front = distance_front ** 2257

'Calculate Distance

RETURN

Ping_left:

'Check front distance

PULSOUT Ping_lef, 5

'Activate PING))) Pulse

PULSIN Ping_lef, 1, distance_left

distance_left = distance_left ** 2257

'Calculate Distance

RETURN
'[Boe-Bot Navigation]'
Forward_:

'Move Forward

FOR pulseCount = 0 TO 10

'Number Of Pulses To Turn

PULSOUT 13, 850

'Left Servo Right

PULSOUT 12, 650

'Right Servo Right

PAUSE 60

'Refresh Delay

NEXT
RETURN

Forward_25cm:

'Move Forward

FOR pulseCount = 0 TO 60

'Number Of Pulses To Turn

PULSOUT 13, 850

'Left Servo Right

PULSOUT 12, 650

'Right Servo Right

PAUSE 20

'Refresh Delay

NEXT
RETURN

Forward_Pulse:

'Move Forward for

FOR pulseCount = 0 TO 9

'Number Of Pulses To Turn

PULSOUT LeftServo, 850

PULSOUT RightServo, 650
PAUSE 20

'Left Servo Forward

'Right Servo Forward

'Refresh Delay

NEXT
RETURN

Turn_Left:

'Turn Left 90 Degrees

FOR pulseCount = 0 TO 20

'Number Of Pulses To Turn

PULSOUT LeftServo, 650

PULSOUT RightServo, 650
PAUSE 20

'Left Servo Left

'Right Servo Left

'Refresh Delay

NEXT
RETURN

Turn_Right:

''Turn Right 90 Degrees

FOR pulseCount = 0 TO 20
PULSOUT LeftServo, 850
PULSOUT RightServo, 850
PAUSE 20

'Number Of Pulses To Turn

'Left Servo Right
'Right Servo Right

'Refresh Delay

NEXT
RETURN

From the following program statements that has been shown above under program description
we can conclude that the Boe-Bot used left hand rule method navigation this lead us to
If the left ping sensor detect the wall and the front sensor didn't detect this will tell the Boe-Bot
to move forward.
If the left sensor detects the wall also the front sensor this will tell the Boe-Bot to turn right by 90
degree. If the left sensor detect the wall and the front sensor does not this will tell the Boe-Bot to
keep moving forward. The Boe-bot will keep moving forward when the left sensor detect the
wall until the front sensor detect the wall so at this case the Boe-Bot will turn left by 90 degree.

Discussion
From the entire results displayed above the bot-bot mobile robot was already assembled in the
lab. The only thing we did is only connected two ultrasonic one in front and the other one in the
left side. There are 3 pins coming from the ultrasonic sensor and pins are all connected to the
Boe-Bots the ground pin goes to Vss, the supply voltage pin (5V) goes to Vdd pin and finally to
the Signal pin is connected to Pin 1 for the front ultrasonic and Pin 0 for left sensor. The boe-bot
were given specific paths in order to program it to pass through. First was to connected the
ultrasonic to the boe-bot and program it to follow the maze given from the start point till the end
point. The Boe-bot was able to detect the wall and working so good but before the end point. We
used the righ hand rules in order to make the boe-bot turn right if its facing the wall in front and
left side so that the boe-bot only will turn right if the left sensor detect a wall as well as the front
sensor. The boe-bot was not able to go through the end of the maze, its because before the end
point the sensor must detect the front wall only in order to make it turn left side but if failed to do
that so it keep detecting the left and front wall and keep turning right again. Thus, this make the
boe-bot turn right again to the wrong direction. After trying to improve and modified the
program we still could not make it turn to the left side if the left ultrasonic didnt detect any wall.
For an ultrasonic sensor to work, the sound must bounce back from the target. This means that
the sound must travel twice the distance from the sensor to the object. For an object 10 meters
away, the sound must travel 10 meters to the object, and 10 meters back to the sensor, for a total
of 20 meters. After that we connected the line follower sensor in order to make the boe-bot
follow the path given and detect the white tape only. This program works by detecting either the
white tape or green poster board. When detecting the white, both wheels propel the robot forward
in a straight line. If the robot strays towards the green line, it sends a signal to make the opposite
motor spin faster and slows the other one, twisting the robot back onto the track.

Conclusion
In this chapter a brief overview of fundamentals in ultrasonic sensing is presented. Some advanced
techniques and applications to non destructed evaluation are also introduced. The essentials of ultrasonic
sensing are how to drive an ultrasonic wave into an object and how to capture the ultrasonic wave from
the object. In addition, another essential is how to extract the information we want from the captured
ultrasonic wave. To accomplish to drive an ultrasonic wave into an object and how to capture the
ultrasonic wave from the object. In addition, another essential is how to extract the information we want
from the captured ultrasonic wave. To accomplish anology, but, it should be noted that classical
techniques and methods are still attractive and have the potential to create something new.

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