In previous projects, we talked about various Arduino basis Robotics projects. Now we are going to build a two-in-one robot which is an Arduino line follower robot with obstacle detection using some simple components. This is an autonomous robot that detects a black or white path and follows according to the path drawn. It follows the path with the help of an infrared sensor attached to the robot. The path can either be a black line or a white line, thus it avoids any detection errors.
This Line follower robot has an obstacle sensor (HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor) that detects any type of obstacle in front of the robot so that there is no accident happening with the robot. Line follower robot is designed and programmed in such a way that it can follow the path without any errors. It operates in such a way that it detects and reads the path and transmits the signal to Arduino UNO. Then the microcontroller decides to make any changes in the directions and speed of the robot according to the inputs given by the Arduino. Thus, it sends the analog signal to the speed and directions of the line follower robot. To make a line follower robot with obstacle detection ability, it is attached with an ultrasonic sensor, which is a device that can measure the distance between an object and a robot sensor by using ultrasonic waves.
Principle Behind Line Follower Robot
The Line Follower Obstacle Avoidance Robot consists of two infrared sensors and an HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor attached to it. When the left IR sensor senses the black line, then the robot turns on the left side and if the right IR sensor senses the black line, then the robot turns the right side. Until both the left and right IR sensors sense the white area, the robot moves forward continuously. If the robot comes across a path where there is another black strip lying perpendicular to the path, then the robot stops at that moment.
Project
Circuit Diagram
Components Required
- Arduino UNO
- L293D UNO Motor Driver Shield
- HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor
- Infrared Sensor Module (x2)
- Geared Motor (x4)
- Wheels (x4)
- 3.7V Li-Ion Battery (x2)
- Battery Box
- Chassis
- Connector Wires
About Parts of Line Follower Robot
Arduino
For the compact build, I choose Arduino Nano despite Arduino UNO. Arduino Nano is a small, flexible microcontroller board using an Atmega328p chip. It can also use as a substitute for UNO. All the functions are the same in these two boards. The size of its PCB is 18×45 mm. The clock speed is 16Mhz. Its input voltage is 5-12V. There are 30 pins including power pins, data pins, analog pins, serial pins on this board.
Ultrasonic Sensor
This is a sensor that can measure the distance of an object from the sensor position by ultrasonic sound waves. It sends ultrasonic waves of 40 KHz in the medium. If the waves are reflected on the object and bounce back to the sensor, it calculates the distance by calculating the travel time and speed of sound.
Infared Sensor
An infrared sensor module is an electronic device that emitted infrared rays for sensing. This sensor can sense any objects in the surroundings as well as measures the heat and motion of it. The working principle of this module is so easy. The IR transmitter sends the infrared rays and after a certain distance, it gets reflected by the object. These reflected rays get captured by the receiver present in this module. By this process, it captured data from the object.
L293D UNO Motor Driver Shield
This is an L293D motor driver shield that can drive four motors, one stepper motor and two servo motors using Arduino UNO. Motors are arranged in a way called Half-Bridge. H-Bridge is an electronic circuit that enables a voltage to be applied across a load. It allows full control over a standard electric DC motor.
Note: I am using an L293D motor driver shield in this project, but you can also use an L298N motor driver as we use only four BO motors. But in the case of four BO motors for better result, we should use the L298N motor driver.
PCB Design
For removing messy wiring and give a clean look, I designed a PCB prototype for this project. It is also helpful for troubleshooting that runs great without any errors. To design this PCB board, I used EasyEDA as it is too easy to use. For ordering PCB for this, I prefer PCBWay.
Gerber file for Line Follower Obstacle Avoidance Robot Gerber.
PCB View
Order PCB From PCBWay
There are so many forums or communities for electronics online in today’s technical world, and one of the famous ones for PCB manufacturing is the PCBWay. PCBWay is a place that brings manufacturers and customers together. They have more than a decade of experience in this field of fabrication, prototyping and assembling PCBs. PCBWay have proved their focus to their customers’ needs in terms of cost-effectiveness, delivery, and quality.
How PCB Manufacturing Process Done in PCBWay
Standard quality for any product needs to be maintained using some parameters. PCBWay gives that opportunity by quality control in designing and manufacturing. At first, they ensure accuracy, clarity, validity of the PCB files that we sent to them.
Then all the boards will go through the most stringent tests other than the basic visual check. They adopt most of the testing and inspecting equipment used in the industry, such as Flying Probe Tester, X-Ray Inspection Machine, Automated Optical Inspection (AOI) Machine. PCBWay are having 50+ new engineers on the daily basis around the world using PCBs for their work, who trust for their reliable quality. They produce high-quality pink, orange, grey, even transparent solder mask. Moreover, according to people needs, they can also provide Black core PCB. Check it out for a High-Quality PCB solder mask. There are some pictures below of the new colours of solder musks.
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Working Principle of Arduino Line Follower Robot
According to the above circuit diagram, we notice that a microcontroller (Atmega328p) is used to communicate with the whole system for processing the robotics functions. First, we need to connect both Vcc and ground pins of the Arduino Nano with a 9V power supply. As we know this is the main source for operating the whole system.
After connecting the above connection, let’s connect the L293D motor driver shield onto the Arduino UNO. Four geared motors are connected to the outer terminal of the motor driver as shown in the circuit diagram. This is a powerful motor driver that can drive four 6V motors easily.
After that, let’s connect the right infrared sensor’s data pin to the A0 pin and the left infrared sensor’s data pin to the A1 pin of the Arduino. It helps to detect the black line according to the robot’s path and let it rotate in the correct direction.
Next, we need to connect an Ultrasonic sensor for detecting obstacles in front of its path. Then we need to connect the “Echo” and “Trig” pins to the A4 and A5 pins of the Arduino respectively. It collects the signal by throwing an ultrasound to any obstacles in front of it and then sends this signal by the “Trig” pin. Thus the Obstacle Avoiding Arduino Line Follower Robot works.
Conclusion of Arduino Line Follower Robot
Thus, the line follower obstacle avoidance robot is successfully designed and implemented. We can use the advanced big version of this robot in public transport. It will easily be operated without any other devices like smartphones, remote control, WiFi etc. This is fully automatic according to the path which we gave for it using the Arduino microcontroller.
Application of Arduino Line Follower Robot
- In a time of automation generation to reduce labour efforts, it is necessary to develop such type of robot, that can be used in airports to carry equipment and luggage from one place to another.
- They are very useful as they can work without any supervision i.e. they work like fully automatic vehicles.
- With additional features like obstacle avoidance and other security measures, we can use obstacle avoiding line follower system in a driverless car.
Install NewPing Library
Click here to install the NewPing Library file.
After finishing the download open Arduino IDE software.
Sketch>> Include Library>> Add .ZIP Library>> Select NewPing ZIP which you download recently>> Open.
Arduino Code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 | #include<NewPing.h> int MOTOR_A1 = 6; // MOTOR_A1 connected to Digital pin D6 int MOTOR_A2 = 5; // MOTOR_A2 connected to Digital pin D5 int MOTOR_B1 = 4; // MOTOR_B1 connected to Digital pin D4 int MOTOR_B2 = 3; // MOTOR_B2 connected to Digital pin D3 int RIGHT_IR = A0; // RIGHT IR sensor connected to Analog pin A0 int LEFT_IR = A1; // LEFT IR sensor connected to Analog pin A1 #define TRIG A3 // TRIG PIN connected to Analog pin A3 #define ECHO A2 // ECHO PIN connected to Analog pin A2 #define MAX_DISTANCE 100 // Define Maximum Distance NewPing sonar(TRIG, ECHO, MAX_DISTANCE); void setup() { pinMode(MOTOR_A1, OUTPUT); // initialize MOTOR_A1 pin as an output pinMode(MOTOR_A2, OUTPUT); // initialize MOTOR_A2 pin as an output pinMode(MOTOR_B1, OUTPUT); // initialize MOTOR_B1 pin as an output pinMode(MOTOR_B2, OUTPUT); // initialize MOTOR_B2 pin as an output pinMode(RIGHT_IR, INPUT); // initialize RIGHT IR pin as an input pinMode(LEFT_IR, INPUT); // initialize LEFT IR pin as an input } void loop() { delay(70); int distance = sonar.ping_cm(); if (distance == 0) { distance = 30; } if(distance <=15) { Stop(); delay(100); turnRight(); delay(350); moveForward(); delay(500); turnLeft(); delay(350); moveForward(); delay(700); turnLeft(); delay(300); moveForward(); delay(400); turnRight(); delay(400); } if (analogRead(RIGHT_IR)<=35 && analogRead(LEFT_IR)<=35) { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, LOW); }else if (analogRead(RIGHT_IR)<=35 && !analogRead(LEFT_IR)<=35) { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, LOW); } else if (!analogRead(RIGHT_IR)<=35 && analogRead(LEFT_IR)<=35) { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, HIGH); } else if (!analogRead(RIGHT_IR)<=35 && !analogRead(LEFT_IR)<=35) { Stop(); } } void Stop() { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, LOW); } void turnRight() { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, HIGH); } void turnLeft() { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, LOW); } void moveForward() { digitalWrite(MOTOR_A1, LOW); digitalWrite(MOTOR_A2, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B1, HIGH); digitalWrite(MOTOR_B2, LOW); } |