Obstacle detection and avoidance by a mobile robot

Abstract

The project “Obstacle Detection and Avoidance by a Mobile Robot” deals with detection and avoidance of the various obstacles found in an environment. We divided the task of creating the robot into five phases namely LED and LDR component designing, comparator, microcontroller, motor driver and the motor. While designing and construction of the hardware for the robot, we started with the circuit construction of the LEDs and the LDRs, then designed the comparator which does the task of converting the input voltage to a digital output that is fed to the microcontroller. The implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) logic in done in this phase, the AI logic is fed to the microcontroller. The robot gathers facts about the scenario through the sensors. It then compares this information to the data stored and decides what the information signifies. The robot runs through the various possible actions and then based on the collected information, predicts which action will be most successful. The motor driver then implements the decided action and the motor helps run the robot. The robot designed was found to successfully run on an obstacle free course after being able to detect obstacles and take appropriate actions. The accuracy of the robot was 86.62% which was determined by testing the robot against various obstacles and calculating the observations. This project describes the basic ground work which when developed further can create more advanced robots which has a wide range of application such as in unmanned vehicle driving which can be useful for space projects, for industrial purposes, in households, etc. The building of such robots will require the developers to tackle problems such as finding efficient, effective design of circuit components keeping in mind a simple and a light-weight model that allows for smooth movement of the robot. The accuracy of the robot is dependent on the accuracy of the sensors