Mini Project EN407 Robotics

B.Sc. Engineering University of Moratuwa

COLLISION AVOIDANCE MOBILE ROBOT

By Dangampola D.L. De Abrew K.N.T. Kasthuriarachchi T.D. Malwatta K.A. Dahanayake J.K. 020059 020067 020203 020241 020057

Department of Electronic and Telecommunication Engineering

August 2006

EN407 : Robotics

Collision Avoidance Mobile robot

Abstract

The objective of this project was to develop a Collision Avoidance Mobile robot with onboard sensors and a Microcontroller. The mobile robot designed is capable of moving in an environment which has obstacles avoiding collisions. The Designed mobiles robot is a three wheeled Robot with differential steering. The Robot has an onboard rotating Ultrasonic Sensor and Bumper switches for improved safety. The Main Controller of the Robot is implemented in a PIC microcontroller. The Mobile robot uses the Potential Field Method for Obstacle avoidance. The Algorithms runs on the PIC microcontroller based on the information received by the Ultrasonic Ranger.

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Collision Avoidance Mobile robot

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Scope and Overview....................................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Basic Operation .............................................................................................................................. 1 2.0 Overall system Design and operation................................................................................................. 2 2.1 Functional Block Diagram ............................................................................................................. 2 2.2 System Operation ........................................................................................................................... 3 2.3 Implementation of the potential field method ................................................................................ 4 3.0 Components of the Mobile Robot ...................................................................................................... 6 3.1 The PIC 877A microcontroller....................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Servo Motor.................................................................................................................................... 6 3.3 Sonar Sensor................................................................................................................................... 7 3.4 Stepper motors................................................................................................................................ 7 3.5 The PIC 873A microcontroller Sonar/ Servo controller ............................................................. 9 3.6 Mechanical Design....................................................................................................................... 11 3.7 Circuit Diagram............................................................................................................................ 12 4.0 Results .............................................................................................................................................. 12 5.0 Limitations and Further Developments............................................................................................ 13

APPENDIX A : PIC Program : Main Controller ................................................................................... 14 APPENDIX B : PIC Program : Servo and Sonar Controller ................................................................. 30

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List of Figures

Figure 1 : The Mobile Robot.................................................................................................................... 1 Figure 2: Mobile Robot Navigating through Obstacles ........................................................................... 2 Figure 3: Block Diagram of the System................................................................................................... 2 Figure 4 : Flow chart ................................................................................................................................ 3 Figure 5: Sonar Readings ......................................................................................................................... 4 Figure 6 : Repulsive Forces...................................................................................................................... 5 Figure 7 : Local Goals.............................................................................................................................. 5 Figure 8: hitec HS 300 Servo motor and the Sonar sensor ..................................................................... 6 Figure 9 : SRF 05 Sonar Sensor ............................................................................................................... 7 Figure 10 : FDK Stepper motors Unipolar mode operation.................................................................. 8 Figure 11 : PIC 873A microcontroller Pin Diagram ................................................................................ 9 Figure 12 : PIC 873A microcontroller - Used Pin layout ........................................................................ 9 Figure 13 : Robot Base........................................................................................................................... 11 Figure 14 : Circuit Diagram ................................................................................................................... 12

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1.0 Introduction
1.1 Scope and Overview
The purpose of this project was to develop a mobile robot with the collisions avoidance capability in an obstructed environment. The mobile robot has been built as a fully autonomous vehicle with onboard sensors to get information about the surrounding environment. The mobile robot is a three wheeled robot platform which employs the differential steering mechanism for motion in given angles. Two stepper motors have been used for the driving wheels. The robot has an onboard Ultrasonic sensor which is mounted on the standard servo motor. The Servo Motor and the Ultrasonic sensor are controlled by a dedicated microcontroller which sends the information collected to the main controller. To improve the reliability the bumper switches has been used as redundant sensors. The Potential Field method has been used as the obstacle avoidance algorithm and the Algorithm is implemented in the main PIC microcontroller which is on the mobile robot. The Algorithm implemented is used to avoid the obstacle and to drive the robot to a locally generated goal.

Figure 1 : The Mobile Robot

1.2 Basic Operation

When the robot is switched on it scans its surrounding environment by rotation the Ultrasonic sensor in 45o steps. Then the distance of the nearest obstacle in each direction will be measured and the data is fed to the main controller. The main controller implements the Potential Field Algorithm and decides the direction which the mobile robots should move. According to that, the main controller sends the control signal sequence to each stepper motor to turn the robot to the specified angle using differential steering. 1

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Thereafter the robot moves a predefined distance and the robot scans its environment again as mentioned earlier. This process continues when the mobile robot is switched on.

Figure 2: Mobile Robot Navigating through Obstacles

2.0 Overall system Design and operation

2.1 Functional Block Diagram

Figure 3: Block Diagram of the System The above diagram is the functional block diagram of the entire system. The Main Controller will trigger the Servo Controller, receive the distance values, run the collision avoidance algorithm and control the Stepper motors. The Servo Controller controls the sonar sensor and servo motor while providing the readings from the sonar sensor to the Main Controller. A description of each of these functional blocks is given in next chapter.

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2.2 System Operation

The operation of the whole system can be represented using the following flow chart.

Figure 4 : Flow chart

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Collision Avoidance Mobile robot

2.3 Implementation of the potential field method

Here we implement the conventional potential field method with some modifications so that it is not computationally expensive in the PIC microcontroller. Here we do not use the inverse square law to calculate the repulsive force exerted by the obstacles because it involves very expensive calculations that takes lot of time in a microcontroller. Instead we use weights so that obstacles that are nearer to the robot exert high weights while obstacles that are far from the robot exert low weights. These weights are equivalent to the repulsive forces. The distances to the obstacles are given by the sonar sensor readings. These readings come from angles 0, 45, 90, 135 and 180 degrees as shown in the figure (a). Theres an assumption that we make at this point. When we get a reading from a certain direction we assume that the obstacle is aligned with that axis. For example the obstacle A will give a reading in 0 degrees direction so we assume that A is aligned with 0 degrees axis in calculating the repulsive force though it is not the real case. We make this assumption because it is hard to calculate the exact angel at which the obstacle is located using a PIC microcontroller. For the sonar sensor the probability of finding an object is distributed as shown in figure (b). This is a bell-shaped probability distribution having the highest probability along the main axis of the sonar beam. Therefore we think that our assumption is reasonable enough to apply. 90 45 Obstacle A Figure (a)

135

180 Robot

Figure (b)

Figure 5: Sonar Readings 4

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When we calculate the resultant force we ignore the obstacles that are beyond a certain threshold distance DTh to avoid unnecessary calculations. For example obstacle B is taken into account because it is within the threshold while obstacle A is discarded from the process of calculating the resultant force as it is away from the threshold distance.

Obstacle B D1 D2 Robot Obstacle A

DTh

Figure 6 : Repulsive Forces The repulsive force (or weight) for obstacle B is calculated as F = DTh D1 If all five sonar readings come from within the threshold distance, the repulsive force is not calculated and the robot is instructed to reverse. All the repulsive forces are resolved and the total repulsive forces x and y components are calculated. Resolving for 45 and 135 degrees components is done using a table lookup. The advantage of these angles is that we dont have to use two separate tables for sin and cos. Selecting the goal is done on a priority basis. This priority scheme is shown in the following figure. 90 Priority level = 1 135 Priority level = 2 45 Priority level = 2

180 Priority level = 3 Robot

0 Priority level = 3

Figure 7 : Local Goals 5

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For example if the sonar reading indicates that the 90 direction is clear (that is theres no obstacle within the threshold distance in that direction) it is the direction that is chosen as the goal direction even if any other directions are clear. After assigning the goal, its attractive force which is a constant is resolved if necessary and is subtracted or added accordingly to the resultant repulsive forces x and y components to calculate the x and y components of the total force acting on the robot. Then the angle of the resultant force is calculated from these x and y components and it is fed to the motor controlling unit.

3.0 Components of the Mobile Robot

3.1 The PIC 877A microcontroller
This is the main controller of the mobile robot. When the robot is turned on, the main controller PIC sends a trigger to the servo control PIC to perform an obstacle scan. The results of the obstacle scan are then obtained by the main controller PIC through USART reception. Once the data is received, it is inputted into the conventional potential field algorithm as described earlier. This algorithm will decide the angle to which the mobile robot should turn. Then the appropriate control signals are sent to the two stepper motors in order to obtain this angle. Afterwards the control signals required for the movement (forward or backward) is give to the stepper motors which will be followed by stopping the mobile robot and sending the trigger signal to the servo control PIC. This will continue as a cycle.

3.2 Servo Motor

The Servo motor is used to rotate the sonar sensor to 5 predetermined positions. At these positions the reading of the sonar sensor is obtained 4 times and averaged.

Figure 8: hitec HS 300 Servo motor and the Sonar sensor The servo motor consists of three wires. Yellow wire - Control 6

EN407 : Robotics Red wire - +5 V

Collision Avoidance Mobile robot

Black wire - Ground The position of the servo motor is determined by the width of the (3-5V) pk-pk square pulse sent to its Control wire. The pulses should be given every 20 ms. Given below are the pulse durations required for the servo motor positions are given below. Center Position 1.7 ms 90 degrees counter clockwise from center position 0.9 ms 45 degrees counter clockwise from center position 1.3 ms 90 degrees clockwise from center position 2.1 ms 45 degrees clockwise from center position - 2.5 ms

3.3 Sonar Sensor

Figure 9 : SRF 05 Sonar Sensor The mode pin is not used , thus we have used separate pins for echo output and trigger input. The sonar sensor is triggered by sending a 10us pulse. The echo pulse width determines the distance to the object. The range of the echo pulse is from 100us to 25 ms. The 10 us is sent to the trigger input and the echo output is received by the PIC 873A microcontroller.

3.4 Stepper motors

Two FDK stepper motors are used and are controlled independently of each other to obtain the differential steering of the mobile robot. The step angle of the stepper motor is 7.5 degrees. 2 wires (red) are present to give power and the other 4 wires ( black, brown, yellow and orange) are for controlling the motor. 7

EN407 : Robotics Drive mode Unipolar mode Excitation - Two way excitation

Collision Avoidance Mobile robot

Two way Excitation

Figure 10 : FDK Stepper motors Unipolar mode operation

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3.5 The PIC 873A microcontroller Sonar/ Servo controller

Figure 11 : PIC 873A microcontroller Pin Diagram In the above PIC microcontroller the following pins are configured as inputs and outputs Inputs RA1 - Echo output from sonar RB0 Interrupt from Master PIC Outputs RA3 - Trigger input to the Sonar RC0 -PWM output to the Servo Motor RC6 -USART TX to the Master PIC

Figure 12 : PIC 873A microcontroller - Used Pin layout

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When an interrupt arrives from the Master PIC to perform obstacle surveillance, the PWM output will be given such that the servo motor will move the sonar sensor to Position 1. At this 10

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position the sonar will be triggered and four echo outputs will be obtained and averaged. Then the servo motor will move the sonar to Position 2 and as before the readings from the sonar sensor will be obtained and averaged. This procedure is performed in 5 positions. Finally the averaged distance readings from these 5 positions will be sent through USART transmission to the master PIC. The software flow chart of the PIC program is given below. The program is given in Appendix B . The 5 Position that readings from the sonar sensor are taken Position 1 90 degrees counter clockwise from the center position Position 2 - 45 degrees counter clockwise from center position Position 3 Center position Position 4 - 45 degrees clockwise from center position Position 5 - 90 degrees clockwise from center position

3.6 Mechanical Design

The mobile robot has a circular shape of 10cm radius. The circular shape chosen to suit the differential steering mechanism and to minimize the collisions when steering. The robot consists of two driving wheels and one passive wheel. The robot base is basically constructed using plastics. The two motors are mounted to the base using metal sheets. The wheels are directly coupled to the motor shafts and the wheels were cut from Nylon.

Figure 13 : Robot Base

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3.7 Circuit Diagram

The Circuit Diagram of the Electronic circuit of the robot is shown below.

Figure 14 : Circuit Diagram

4.0 Results
After creating the mobile robot, implementing the collision avoidance algorithm on the microcontroller, testing and with modifications we were able to achieve our project goal. That is to design a collision avoidance robot. Our final version of the mobile robot was able to avoid collisions 12

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90% of the time (according to test results). Since it is quite difficult to develop a 100% collision avoidance system, we believe that the achieved collision avoidance rate is satisfactory.

5.0 Limitations and Further Developments

There are several limitations that exist in the current system which should be addressed in further developments. The mobile robot has information only about its local environment and does not localize itself in a global environment. Thus it is impossible to introduce a define goal to the mobile robot to reach in global environment. The robot scans through the sonar sensor only in five predefined directions. Thus it is assumed that any obstacle detected lies in those directions only. This effect can be minimized by incorporating probabilistic models to the system which is somewhat difficult in a microcontroller. Also sometimes some obstacles are not detected when the obstacle surface isnt in an angle to sufficiently reflect the waves sent by the sonar sensor. A proper attention should be paid to the above matters in a further development of this project.

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APPENDIX A : PIC Program : Main Controller

(The Editable .asm files are given in the CD)

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APPENDIX B : PIC Program : Servo and Sonar Controller

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