Obstacle Avoiding Robot

My project is an obstacle avoiding robot. It is a car-like robot equipped with an ultrasonic sensor.

Engineer	School	Area of Interest	Grade
Antonio C.	Homestead High	Computer Science and Electrical Engineering	Incoming Junior

Headstone Image

GIF 1: https://github.com/AntonioCuan/Antonio_Robot_BSE_Portfolio/blob/gh-pages/robot%20gif%201.gif

GIF 2: https://github.com/AntonioCuan/Antonio_Robot_BSE_Portfolio/blob/gh-pages/robot%20gif%202.gif

Presentation

Final Milestone

My final milestone was building a robotic arm and programming bluetooth control for the robot. Building the robotic arm took a lot of work. The robot arm connected to an Arduino Shield attached to an Arduino Uno, which was connected to an Arduino bluetooth module. Once I finished it, I moved on to creating bluetooth control. The robotic arm kit already had pre-made code and a pre-made mobile app for bluetooth control, so I did not have to build those things myself. Once I got bluetooth control to work for the arm, I worked on using an ESP32 for the car robot in place of the Arduino Uno because the ESP32 had bluetooth capabilities while the Arduino Uno did not. My plan was to only use the ESP32 for both the car robot and the robotic arm. Unfortunately, I could not get the ESP32 to connect to my computer even after hours of troubleshooting. Instead, I decided to use the Arduino Shield, Uno, and bluetooth module mentioned earlier. Then, I got to work on mounting the robot arm on top of the car robot and re-wiring all the wires. Once I was done with that, I created a simple mobile app using MIT App Inventor to control the robot. The app can connect to the robot through bluetooth and allows me to control the robot to start and stop. Finally, I combined my code for the car robot and the pre-made code for the robotic arm together so I could control both parts of the robot without having to upload different code files to the Arduino. It did not work at first, but I persevered, debugged the code, and got it to work.

Second Milestone

My second milestone was adding the ultrasonic sensor to the robot and programming the robot to avoid obstacles using the sensor’s capabilities. I first programmed the ultrasonic sensor to sense how far away objects were and tested that it worked. I also put tape around each of the robot’s wheels to lessen the friction between the the wheels and the ground. The robot had trouble turning without the tape, but turning was smooth with the tape. Then, I added the ultrasonic sensor to the robot and wrote code for the robot to avoid obstacles. I tested this with the robot, and it worked! Finally, I wrote code for the robot to alternate the direction it turned for each obstacle it encountered. This was more complicated that I initially thought, but after a lot of thinking and testing, I was able to get it to work.

First Milestone

My first milestone was wiring the initial components for the robot and writing code to get them working. First, I wired the motor controller with two motors and the Arduino. Next, I ran demo code I found from a tutorial to test that the components worked. Then, I wrote code to run the motors so that they would make the robot move forwards, move backwards, turn left, and turn right.

Reflection

Through building this project, I learned that taking small steps at a time is a good thing. Initially, I took small steps in building my robot, such as testing the motor controller and the ultrasonic sensor. Once I tested that the different components worked, I put them all together. If I took too much of a big step, there would be a good chance that it would not work. I also learned that perseverance is important. If I did not persevere through the bugs in the code when I programmed bluetooth control, I would not have been able to finish my modification.

Circuit Diagram

motor circuit

Code

#include <Servo.h>  // add the servo libraries

// motor 1 pins
int enA = 5;
int in1 = 2;
int in2 = 4;

// motor 2 pins
int enB = 9;
int in3 = 12;
int in4 = 13;

// ultrasonic sensor pins
int trigPin = 8;
int echoPin = 7;

// servo objects
Servo myservo1;
Servo myservo2;
Servo myservo3;
Servo myservo4;

// servo pins
int servo1Pin = 10;
int servo2Pin = 3;
int servo3Pin = 11;
int servo4Pin = 6;

// other constants
int speed = 255;
float speedOfSound = 0.034; // in cm/μs
float turnDistance = 35; // in cm
int servo1Position = 80;
int servo2Position = 90;
int servo3Position = 90;
int servo4Position = 90;

// other variables
bool toggleReferenceTime = true;
unsigned long referenceTime, elapsedTime;
int minForwardTime = 500;
bool directionRight = true;
bool hasTurned = false;
float obstacleDistance;
bool moveToggle = false;
int angleDifference = 4;
char val;
int incomingByte = 0;
String inputString = "";
boolean newLineReceived = false;
boolean startBit  = false;
int numReceived = 0;

void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);
  
  pinMode(enA, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(enB, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(in4, OUTPUT);

  pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);

  myservo1.attach(servo1Pin);
  myservo2.attach(servo2Pin);
  myservo3.attach(servo3Pin);
  myservo4.attach(servo4Pin);
  
  // boot posture
  myservo1.write(servo1Position);
  delay(1000);
  myservo2.write(servo2Position);
  myservo3.write(servo3Position);
  myservo4.write(servo4Position);
}

void setRightMotomoveArmBackorward()
{
  digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in2, HIGH);
}

void setRightMotomoveArmBackackward()
{
  digitalWrite(in1, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
}

void setLeftMotomoveArmBackorward()
{
  digitalWrite(in3, HIGH);
  digitalWrite(in4, LOW);
}

void setLeftMotomoveArmBackackward()
{
  digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in4, HIGH);
}

void setSpeed()
{
  analogWrite(enA, speed);
  analogWrite(enB, speed);
}

void moveForward()
{
  setLeftMotomoveArmBackorward();
  setRightMotomoveArmBackorward();
  setSpeed();
}

void moveBackward()
{
  setLeftMotomoveArmBackackward();
  setRightMotomoveArmBackackward();
  setSpeed();
}

void turnRight()
{
  setLeftMotomoveArmBackorward();
  setRightMotomoveArmBackackward();
  setSpeed();
}

void turnLeft()
{
  setLeftMotomoveArmBackackward();
  setRightMotomoveArmBackorward();
  setSpeed();
}

void stop()
{
  digitalWrite(in1, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in2, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in3, LOW);
  digitalWrite(in4, LOW);
}

void testDirections()
{
  moveForward();
  delay(5000);
  stop();
  delay(2000);
  moveBackward();
  delay(5000);
  stop();
  delay(2000);
  turnRight();
  delay(5000);
  stop();
  delay(2000);
  turnLeft();
  delay(5000);
  stop();
  delay(2000);
}

float ultraSonicMeasure()
{
  // generate 10-microsecond pulse to TRIG pin
  digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
  delayMicroseconds(10);
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);

  // measure duration of pulse from ECHO pin
  float duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);

  // calculate the distance in cm
  float distance = (speedOfSound * duration) / 2;

  return distance;
}

void moveAvoidObstacles()
{
  obstacleDistance = ultraSonicMeasure();
  if (obstacleDistance <= turnDistance)
  {
    turnRight();
  }
  else
  {
    moveForward();
  }
}

void complexMoveAvoidObstacles()
{
  obstacleDistance = ultraSonicMeasure();
  if (obstacleDistance <= turnDistance)
  {
    if (directionRight)
    {
      turnRight();
    }
    else if (!directionRight)
    {
      turnLeft();
    }

    referenceTime = millis();

    hasTurned = true;
  }
  else
  {
    moveForward();

    if (hasTurned)
    {
      if (toggleReferenceTime)
      {
        referenceTime = millis();
        toggleReferenceTime = false;
      }

      elapsedTime = millis() - referenceTime;
      if (elapsedTime >= minForwardTime)
      {
        directionRight = !directionRight;
        toggleReferenceTime = true;
        hasTurned = false;
      }
    }
  }
}

void turnArmLeft()
{
  servo1Position += angleDifference;
  myservo1.write(servo1Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo1Position > 180)
  {
    servo1Position = 180;
  }
}

void turnArmRight()
{
  servo1Position -= angleDifference;
  myservo1.write(servo1Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo1Position < 0)
  {
    servo1Position = 0;
  }
}

void closeClaw()
{
  servo4Position -= angleDifference;
  myservo4.write(servo4Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo4Position < 45)
  {
    servo4Position = 45;
  }
}

void openClaw()
{
  servo4Position += angleDifference;
  myservo4.write(servo4Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo4Position > 120)
  {
    servo4Position = 120;
  }
}

void moveArmForward()
{
  servo2Position -= angleDifference;
  myservo2.write(servo2Position);
  delay(5);
  
  if(servo2Position < 25)
  {
    servo2Position = 25;
  }
}

void moveArmBack()
{
  servo2Position += angleDifference;
  myservo2.write(servo2Position);
  delay(5);
  
  if(servo2Position > 180)
  {
    servo2Position = 180;
  }
}

void moveArmUp()
{
  servo3Position += angleDifference;
  myservo3.write(servo3Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo3Position > 135)
  {
    servo3Position = 135;
  }
}

void moveArmDown()
{
  servo3Position -= angleDifference;
  myservo3.write(servo3Position);
  delay(5);

  if(servo3Position < 0)
  {
    servo3Position = 0;
  }
}

void loop()
{
  if (Serial.available())
  {
    incomingByte = Serial.read();

    if (incomingByte == 1)
    {
      moveToggle = true;
    }
    else if (incomingByte == 0)
    {
      moveToggle = false;
    }

    if (incomingByte == '%')
    {
      numReceived = 0;
      startBit = true;
    }
    if (startBit == true)
    {
      numReceived++;
      inputString += (char) incomingByte;     
    }
    if (startBit == true && incomingByte == '#')
    {
      newLineReceived = true;
      startBit = false;
    }
    
    if(numReceived >= 20)
    {
      numReceived = 0;
      startBit = false;
      newLineReceived = false;
      inputString = "";
    }
  }
  
  if (moveToggle)
  {
    complexMoveAvoidObstacles();
  }
  else
  {
    stop();
  }

  if(newLineReceived)
  {
    switch(inputString[1])   
    {
      case 'B':
        turnArmLeft();
        break;
      case 'C':
        turnArmRight();
        break;
      case 'A':
        moveArmBack();
        break;
      case 'D':
        moveArmForward();
        break;
      case '5':
        closeClaw();
        break;
      case '6':
        openClaw();
        break;
      case '4':
        moveArmUp();
        break;
      case '7':
        moveArmDown();
        break;
      default:
        break;
    }

    inputString = "";
    newLineReceived = false;
  }
}

Bluetooth Robot Controller App Layout

app layout

Bluetooth Robot Controller App Code

app code