thesis report 2012

Line Following Using Maze Simulator

Final Year Project Report

Presented By

Sharjeel Sarwar

CIIT/SP08-BCE-077/ISB

Waqas Taqi Shah


Zubair Rahat


In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, ISLAMABAD

FEBRUARY 2012

Declaration

We, hereby declare that this project neither as a whole nor as a part there of has been

copied out from any source. It is further declared that we have developed this project

and the accompanied report entirely on the basis of our personal efforts made under

the sincere guidance of our supervisor and related teachers. No portion of the work

presented in this report has been submitted in the support of any other degree of

qualification of this or any other University or Institute of learning, if found we shall

stand responsible.

Signature: ____________________ Sharjeel Sarwar

Signature: ____________________ Waqas Taqi Shah

Signature: ____________________ Zubair Rahat

COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHONOLOGY, ISLAMABAD

FEBRUARY 2012


An Undergraduate Final Year Project Report submitted to the

Department of ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING

As a partial Fulfillment for the award of Degree

Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

By

Name Registration Number

Sharjeel Sarwar CIIT/SP08-BCE-077/ISB

Waqas Taqi Shah CIIT/SP08-BCE-099/ISB

Zubair Rahat CIIT/SP08-BCE-106/ISB

Supervised by

Omair Inam

Assistant Professor,

Department of Electrical Engineering CIIT Islamabad

COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION

TECHNOLOGY, ISLAMABAD

FEBRUARY 2012

Final Approval This Project Titled


Submitted for the Degree of Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

By

Name Registration Number

Sharjeel Sarwar CIIT/SP08-BCE-077/ISB

Waqas Taqi Shah CIIT/SP08-BCE-099/ISB

Zubair Rahat CIIT/SP08-BCE-106/ISB

has been approved for

COMSATS INSTITUTE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, ISLAMABAD

____________________ ____________________

Supervisor Internal Examiner-1 Mr. Omair Inam Mr. Furqan Tahir Assistant Professor, Deptt of EE Lecturer, Deptt of EE

____________________

External Examiner Dr. Athar Khalid

____________________ Head of Deptt of Electrical Engineering

Dedication

We dedicate this thesis to our parents. With their patience, understanding, support and

most of all prayers, the completion of this work would not have been possible. Finally,

this thesis is dedicated to the people of Pakistan and to all those who believe in the

original development and adoption of latest state of the art technology.

Acknowledgements

An endeavor over long period can be successful only with advice and guidance of many

well wishers. I wish to express my profound and deep sense of gratitude to Sir Omair

Inam, Assistant professor in Department of Electrical Engineering to sparing his valuable

time and extend help in every step of our project work.

Our sincere thanks to Management and Lab-Attendants in COMSATS Institute of

Information and Technology, for providing us the opportunity to conduct our project

work.

Last but not the least we would like to thank our friends, especially Mr. Shakir Zareen

(MCS COMSATS Abbottabad) to help in developing the software section and family,

specially our parents for their prayers and motivation for the success of this project.

Sharjeel Sarwar

Waqas Taqi Shah

Zubair Rahat

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Description…………………………………………………………………………………………...1

1.2 Description of Robot …………………………………………………………………………….1

1.2.1 Design ………………………………………………………………………………………………...1

1.3 Motors ………………………………………………………………………………………………..2

1.3.1 DC Motors ………………………………………………………………………………………...2

1.3.2 AC Motor …………………………………………………………………………………………..2

1.3.3 Servo Motors …………………………………………………………………………………….2

1.3.4 R/C Servo Motor ……………………………………………………………………………….3

1.3.5 Stepper Motor …………………………………………………………………………………..3

1.4 Power Supplies …………………………………………………………………………………….3

1.5 Electronic Control ………………………………………………………………………………..4

1.6 Microcontroller Systems ………………………………………………………………………4

2. Motor Driving Circuits 6

2.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………6

2.1.1 Purpose …………………………………………………………………………………………….6

2.2 Motor Driving Circuits ………………………………………………………………………….6

2.2.1 H-Bridge Circuits ………………………………………………………………………………..7

2.2.1.1 Working of H-Bridge …………………………………………………………7

2.2.1.2 Motor Driving Circuit through Darlington Transistors …… … 8

2.3 Important Features of Darlington Transistors …………………………………… 9

2.4 Major Components Used in H-Bridge ………………………………………………. 9

2.5 Advantages of Darlington Transistors ………………………………………………… 9

3. Printed Circuit Board 10

3.1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………10

3.2 Procedure ………………………………………………………………………………………… 12

3.2.1 Selecting Paper ……………………………………………………………………………… 12

3.2.2 Layout Printing ………………………………………………………………………………. 13

3.2.3 Fiber Sheet of Copper ……………………………………………………………………… 13

3.2.4 Etching ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 13

4. Software Section 14

4.1 Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………… 14

4.2 Brief Description ……………………………………………………………………………. 14

4.3 Bitmap Image ……………………………………………………………………………… 14

4.4 Function of Program ……………………………………………………………………… 15

4.5 Image Scaling …………………………………………………………………………………. 15

4.6 Purpose to Use Visual C# ……………………..………………………………………… 15

4.7 Image of Code ………………………………………………………………………………… 17

4.8 Image of Application ……………………………………………………………………… 18

4.9 Code ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 19

Bibliography 89

List of Acronyms

ADC …………………………………………………………………………………..… Analog to Digital Converter

MCU ……………………………………………………………………………………………… Microcontroller Unit

CPU …………………………………………………………………………………………… Central Processing Unit

BJT ……………………………………………………………………………………… Bipolar Junction Transistors

PCB ……………………………………………………………………………………………….. Printed Circuit Board

MHz …………………………………………………………………………………………….……..……..… Mega Hertz

KHz ……………………………………………………………………………………………….…..……………. Kilo Hertz

BMP ………………………………………………………………………………………………..………………….. Bitmap

R/C …………………………………………………………………………………………………... Remote Controlled

RF ……………………………………………………………………………………………………...… Radio Frequency

2D ………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Two Dimensional

3D …………………………………………………………………………………………………..… Three Dimensional

KB ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Kilobyte

RAM ……………………………………………………………………………………….. Random Access Memory

ROM ………………………………………………………………………………………………… Read Only Memory

List of Figures

2.1 Working of H-Bridge …………………………………………………………………………………….. 9

2.2 Darlington Transistors ………………………………………………………………………………… 9

3.1 Printing Circuit Board …………………………………………………………………………………. 9

4.1 Picture of Code ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 33

4.2 Application Program ………………………………………………………………………………….. 33

Abstract

The goal of this project is to design a small autonomous robot which can track a black

line on a white background, while avoiding obstacles. It can avoid obstacles at both

distance and upon contact. This project is an autonomous robot that is capable of

obstacle avoidance, drive wheel synchronization and line tracking. The robot initializes

in seek mode, where it avoids obstacles and searches for a black line to track. Wheel

synchronization, during seek mode, allows the robot to travel in a straight line without

guidance. Once a black line is found, the robot tracks the line and reverses direction

when an obstacle is encountered on the line.

Chapter – 01

Introduction

1.1 Description

The main objective of our project is to run our robot on predefined path, whose

coordinates come from software. The coordinates of maze are used to make our

robot run on that path. The lines extracted from the image in monochromatic

format, becomes our maze. And the robot will follow those lines in that maze.

Robots can be defined as electromechanical instrument which can perform different

tasks on its own. Our Robot must start from point ‘A’ by following the line to

destination can be referred as point ‘B’.

1.2 Description of Robot

1.2.1 Design

Our robot is simple in design, it uses two rear wheels and roll-caster, the wheels at

the rear are used for driving and are powered (DC Motors) while the roll-caster at

front is used to support rear wheels and move in the required direction. The

powered DC motors are drive by the motor driving circuits.

The material used at the base of robot is aluminum. The upper portion consists of

acrylic sheet.

1.3 Motors

A variety of motors can be used in robots, which make the robot able to move. The

competent rating of motor describes the contribution power which is used to shift

electrical energy in to mechanical energy. Now let us overview the present motors

that can be used in robots.

1.3.1 DC Motors

These motors have magnets fixed inside them permanently. The power is supplied to

them by means of two leads (power & ground). The permanent magnet DC motor

comprises of stationary part and rotary part.

1.3.2 AC Motors

These motor works when potential difference is applied at their available leads.

1.3.3 Servo Motors

This is another type of DC Motor, who controls them self on input until they receive

signal. They are mostly used in R/F controlled toy cars and planes. It is the Dc motor

with gears and feedback system.

1.3.4 R/C Servo Motors

They are mostly found in Remote controlled devices for example toys i-e cars,

planes. They are accompanied in many robots, because they are very compressed

and available in low prices. They got built-in gear boxes, position loop back systems

and device to measure electronics. These motors work in forward and backward

motions besides revolving in circles. On signal applications they work on top of their

abilities.

1.3.5 Stepper Motor

These motors fall in the category similar to brushless AC or DC motors. The

movement of rotor is dependent on potential difference unlike magnets present in

the motor. These motors are used where extra control is needed and revolution on

command. It has specified number of step per second (maximum up to their capable

speed)

1.4 Power Supplies

We use battery to supply power; that is Nickel Cadmium Rechargeable battery; they

remain useful for longer period of time and can be recharged through a reversible

chemical effect when needed. It has the advantage that they can be recharged up to

thousands of time. And for the first time of use it gives more than four hours of

functionality. The cell’s chemistry inside the battery determines the voltage of

battery.

There are many types of batteries available in market they are classified by their

voltages, rating, capacity and size etc.

1.5 Electronic Control

There are two main portions in the hardware of our robot. One of those two is

Mechanical stage and the other is electronic control (source of undisturbed power).

Both of these stages had to be merged together for mechanical system to be

controlled by digital inputs.

1.6 Microcontroller Systems

They are inherent part of the robot they are similar to electronic control devices,

who control the function of connected devices. Mostly microprocessors are used in

the said system, they can be referred as central processing unit (CPU) in computers

but the micro word let us sense that they are small as they do not have enough

address space. Microcontrollers have small processing speeds but they are enough

to solve some real world electronic problems. The external components needed to

be coupled with MCU and CPU is the major difference between the two. MCU can

operate even without any external devices connected with them. They might need

crystal oscillator to operate them at higher frequencies.

The important prospects of microcontrollers are speed, memory, size and internal

subsystems. Speed is the no. of clocks per cycle and expressed in hertz.

Various models of microcontrollers are available in market they are 4, 8, 16 and 32

bits. The ROM and RAM are calculated in Bytes and KB.

Most of the time MCU uses Harvard Architecture, whose program is placed in

separate sections, which enables processor to access the memories efficiently. The

last but not the least aspect of MCU is “internal subsystem” includes ADC, interrupts,

serial communications and availability of timers.

MCU take input from different electronic devices and do the processing on them

where required. The program counter used to keep the track of instructions being

used and run by MCU.

Chapter-02

Motor Driving Circuit

2.1 Introduction

The most important task in our hardware portion is to drive our motors.

2.1.1 Purpose

In our main tasks, one is to make our robot follow the line. And for the said purpose we

need our motor to run according to our inputs. For example to move our robot left or

right we have to increase or decrease the speed of the motor accordingly. Therefore in

order to change the speed and direction of motors we have used some motors driving

circuits which are explained below.

2.2 Motor Driving Circuits

The circuits which can be used to drive the motors are

1. H-bridge circuit

2. L298 IC

But we opt for H-bridge circuit (manually designed)

2.2.1 H-Bridge Circuit

H-bridge is an electronic circuit which uses electrical energy in form of potential

difference across the load in different directions. For Example Assume the load is motor,

with the help of H-bridge we can move the motor according to our need and we can

also manage to vary its speed of motors.

Many types of H-bridge circuits are available such as L298 IC, but we built our own by

using Darlington Power transistors and BJTS. These Circuits are explained in this chapter.

2.2.1.1 Working of H-bridge

Mainly H-bridge consists of four transistors which perform as switches and load. When

input is applied at the base of S1 and S3 than collector and emitter of S1 and S3 are

short circuited and the current flow across the load in following manner

Figure 2.1

Similarly if the input is applied at S2 and S4 than the path of current which flows

through the load is shown in figure 2.1(b). Hence it can be seen that the direction of the

current is opposite to that in figure 2.1(a).

2.2.1.2 Motor Driving Circuit through Darlington Transistors

Darlington Transistors are powerful transistors having a high DC current gain, which is

used in H-bridge. H-bridge can operate on the following ratings (up to 24 volts, 10

ampere output current). It is designed for low frequency switching applications. We

used TIP 142 (NPN) and TIP 147 (PNP) in our H-bridge circuit.

Figure 2.2

2.3 Important Features of Darlington Transistors

1. Operating voltage range of Darlington transistor is 24 V

2. DC current output is 10 A

2.4 Major Components used in H-bridge

a. Darlington Transistors:

Darlington Transistors are designed for low frequency switching applications; they

are powerful transistors having a high DC current gain.

b. BJT(Bipolar Junction Transistors):

BJTs are used for fast switching in our H-bridge circuit.

2.5 Advantages of Darlington Transistors

1. They have high current gain

2. They are stable

3. Have a large heat sink

Chapter -03

Printed Circuit Board

3.1 Introduction

After the formation and successfully running of circuits, one of the important steps is to

design a proper PCB (printed circuit board) layout. There is so much software available

for this purpose in the market. All of them, Express PCB is the most popular and easiest

software. The property of this software is to allow to print level four PCB design. It has

the built-in characteristics of altering different parts. It also provides utilities to calculate

per board cost. These features make Express PCB is the right option for PCB layout

designing. This software comprises of two parts, one is Express PCB, and the other one is

Express SCH. The Express SCH is used for schematic design. Before making PCB, it is

good practice to design schematic first.

The circuit implemented over PCB, its working should be test over bread board, and

then according to that, its schematic will be designed. After checking the fine working

over breadboard, we should look over PCB design for our circuit.

Here are following steps which involve the making of PCB.

Glaze Paper or Sticker Back Sheet (Shiny Side).

Black Laser Printer

Fiber Copper PCB Board

Iron (to press the print over board)

Ferric Chloride (Etching Solution)

Scrubbing Material

Paper Cutter

Thinner (Petrol, alcohol or acetone)

Note that the printer should be laser; desk-jet printer cannot be used for printing

purposes of PCB. In laser printer, toner has the powder anti to the etching material used

for construction of PCBs. Toner dissolves with the rising temperature and yielding in

muggy glue just like paste. PCB layout should be printed on the shiny side of the glaze

paper and then it is allowed to dissolve on the fiber copper sheet by pressing through

iron to apply heat. After pressing neatly, it needs to remove off the paper from the fiber

sheet of copper, leaving behind the toner only. The only printing will stick on the toner,

and the rest of paper can be removed by washing gently with water.

After washing gently, now put the fiber sheet of copper into the etching solution ferric

chloride mixed with water for the chemical reaction. During this instance shake gently

and wait for the removal of extra copper on the sheet besides printing. It will be

removed, then wash the circuit board with water to clean out the board.

Next step after washing and cleaning of board is to drill where the components will be

placed. The drilling should be very precise, and keep in mind not to destroy any path of

the PCB. After drilling, the components will be placed over PCB by soldering on it. The

temperature of the solder should not be so high that it would couple off the traces from

the board.

Figure 3.1

3.2 Procedure

3.2.1 Selecting Paper

The optimum paper to be used for printing purpose should be shiny and thin. Shiny side

of sticker sheet should be perfect. After the selection of paper, cut the suitable size and

design of paper. Paper cutter is used for cutting purposes. Do some extra care while the

removals of transparent sheet, as it can rotten the printer drum and its functionality.

3.2.2 Layout Printing

Laser printers are not designed to put the sticker sheet, so it must be insert carefully to

avoid any mishap. If we don’t consider the tray of printer, it will reduce the chance of

paper backup. This work is totally on your own risk.

3.2.3 Fiber Sheet of Copper

Switch on the iron to highest temperature, and do not use steam iron for this purpose.

When the iron become hot enough, press gently the paper over copper sheet, and

continue press until it glue with fiber sheet completely. The following precautions

should be made, the table should insulate with paper, or some cloth to avoid damage.

Remove the excess paper from the board when the board cools to some low

temperature.

3.2.4 Etching

Put the fiber board into etching solution (ferric chloride) and stir continuously until most

of the copper is removed from the board. It is a total chemical reaction (exothermic).

Often we used non metallic container (plastic) for this task. The proper care should be

taken not to stir excessively, as it will thin down the tracks on the board. All the stuff

used for the purpose of etching should not be use for any other purpose and keep them

away from the reach of children.

For any undesired and unnecessary short connections, keep the plastic sheet on the

circuit board. It will also help to mount the board on any specific object. With the help

of plastic sheet, we can mount the circuit board onto our robot structure. When

mounting the board, the ports which have to used more frequently should be placed in

the direction i.e easy to access.

Chapter-04

Software Section

4.1 Introduction

In this project, the monochrome bitmap image is used to extract the coordinates of the

location. The coordinates then pass to the hardware for the practical implementation.

This task is completed using Visual C #.

4.2 Brief Description

The very first step of this project is to get the arena of some location. After getting arena

of some location, the program will automatically covert that image into monochrome

(only two colors). The next task of the program is to get the shortest path between start

and end positions. When the path is selected, it will extract the coordinates of that

location and save it into notepad file. The coordinates will be 2D. Now that coordinates

will pass to the microcontroller and which directs the hardware to drive accordingly.

4.3 BITMAP Image

The program is able to read only bitmap images. It can be changed to variety of formats

and tested successfully with bitmap. The bitmap image either is colored or

monochrome. The program will automatically convert it into monochrome (two colors

only). The two colors are black and white. The black color is considered as a path, and

white color will be neglected as obstacles. The program is made on Visual C #.

4.4 Function of Program

In the next step when the image is read by the program, now we need to select the path

between the starting and ending point of the arena. But there can be more than one

path available in that arena, but the program will select the shortest path using

differential method. Once the path is selected, the program extracts the coordinates

from the image/arena and saves it into the text file. The 2D coordinates will be stored in

the text file.

4.5 Image Scaling

After getting coordinates the program will scale that coordinates into some length. For

example one pixel represents 1 centimeter. The scaled coordinates then used to send as

instructions to the microcontroller to drive the robot according to the image. Note that

the image is not stored in the microcontrollers, only coordinates will be transferred to

the microcontroller.

4.6 Purpose to Use VISUAL C#

This task can be done with the variety of tools available in the market. We did this task

with Turbo C, Matlab and then Visual C#. We found Visual C# the most efficient tool for

this task.

The quality of Visual C# is to have maximum number of built in libraries, which means it

does not require number of lines of code, very specific piece of code can do the task

using built in libraries and functions.

By using language Turbo C, the same task done with more than 700 lines of code, and in

this Visual C#, the lines of code fall to just 100 rounds about. In Visual C#, the

implementation of GUI is also very simple and it applies efficiently into the program

without using external libraries.

4.7 Image of Code

Figure 4.1

4.8 Image of Application

Figure 4.2

4.9 Code

Here is the program code, which was previously explained.

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;

using System.ComponentModel;

using System.Data;

using System.Drawing;

using System.Linq;

using System.Text;

using System.Windows.Forms;

using System.IO;

namespace GridfFinder_Shakir

{

public partial class Form1 : Form

{

public Form1()

{

InitializeComponent();

}

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

OpenFileDialog dlg = new OpenFileDialog();

dlg.Filter = "BMP Image|*.bmp";

if (dlg.ShowDialog() ==

System.Windows.Forms.DialogResult.OK)

{

textBox1.Text = dlg.FileName;

makeGridFromImage(dlg.FileName);

}

}

void makeGridFromImage(string fileName)

{

StreamWriter rtr = new

StreamWriter("d:\\coordinates.txt");

Bitmap bmp = (Bitmap)Image.FromFile(fileName);

Bitmap bmp2 = new Bitmap(bmp.Width, bmp.Height);

listView1.Items.Clear();

int count = 0;

for( int x = 0 ; x < bmp.Width ; x++ )

for (int y = 0; y < bmp.Height; y++)

{

Color c = bmp.GetPixel(x, y);

if (c.R == 0 && c.G == 0 && c.B == 0)

{

listView1.Items.Add(new ListViewItem("("

+ x.ToString() + "," + y.ToString() + ")"));

rtr.WriteLine( "(" + x.ToString() + "," +

y.ToString() + ")");

count++;

label2.Text = "Points found: " +

count.ToString();

//Application.DoEvents();

bmp2.SetPixel(x, y, Color.Black);

}

}

bmp.Dispose();

bmp2.Save("d:\\bmp1.bmp");

rtr.Close();

}

private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

}

private void pictureBox1_Click(object sender, EventArgs

e)

{

}

Bibliography

[01] Datasheet L298, Darlington TIP 142, TIP 147, PIC 16F877A

www.datasheetcatalog.com

[02] Robot building for beginners, by: David Cook.

[03] Building a Line Following Robot, by: Richard T. Vannoy II M.S.I.T, B.S.E.E.T.

[04] Absolute Beginner’s guide to Building Robots, By: Gareth Branwyn

[05] Autonomous Robot Thesis 621.3 (CIIT Library)

thesis report 2012

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