Line Follower Robot using Arduino

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Line follower Robot is a machine which follows a line, either a black line or white line. Basically
there are two types of line follower robots: one is black line follower which follows black line
and second is white line follower which follows white line. Line follower actually senses the line
and run over it.

Concepts of Line Follower

Concept of working of line follower is related to light. We use here the behaviour of light at
black and white surface. When light fall on a white surface it is almost full reflected and in case
of black surface light is completely absorbed. This behaviour of light is used in building a line
follower robot.

In this arduino based line follower robot we have used IR Transmitters and IR receivers also
called photo diodes. They are used for sending and receiving light. IR transmits infrared lights.
When infrared rays falls on white surface, its reflected back and catched by photodiodes which
generates some voltage changes. When IR light falls on a black surface, light is absorb by the
black surface and no rays are reflected back, thus photo diode does not receive any light or rays.
Here in this line follower robot when sensor senses white surface then arduino gets 1 as input
and when senses black line arduino gets 0 as input.

Circuit Explanation
The whole line follower robot can be divided into 3 sections: sensor section, control section and
driver section.

Sensor section:
This section contains IR diodes, potentiometer, Comparator (Op-Amp) and LEDs. Potentiometer
is used for setting reference voltage at comparators one terminal and IR sensors are used to
sense the line and provide a change in voltage at comparators second terminal. Then comparator
compares both voltages and generates a digital signal at output. Here in this line follower circuit
we have used two comparator for two sensors. LM 358 is used as comparator. LM358 has inbuilt
two low noise Op-amps.

Control Section:
Arduino Pro Mini is used for controlling whole the process of line follower robot. The outputs of
comparators are connected to digital pin number 2 and 3 of arduino. Arduino read these signals
and send commands to driver circuit to drive line follower.

Driver section:
Driver section consists motor driver and two DC motors. Motor driver is used for driving motors
because arduino does not supply enough voltage and current to motor. So we add a motor driver
circuit to get enough voltage and current for motor. Arduino sends commands to this motor
driver and then it drive motors.

Working of Line Follower Robot using Arduino

Working of line follower is very interesting. Line follower robot senses black line by using
sensor and then sends the signal to arduino. Then arduino drives the motor according to
sensors' output.

Here in this project we are using two IR sensor modules namely left sensor and right sensor.
When both left and right sensor senses white then robot move forward.

If left sensor comes on black line then robot turn left side.

If right sensor sense black line then robot turn right side until both sensor comes at white surface.
When white surface comes robot starts moving on forward again.

If both sensors comes on black line, robot stops.

Circuit Diagram

Complete circuit diagram for arduino based line follower robot is shown in the above iamge. As
you can see output of comparators is directly connected to arduino digital pin number 2 and 3.
And motor drivers input pin 2, 7, 10 and 15 is connected to arduino's digital pin number 4, 5, 6
and 7 respectively. And one motor is connected at output pin of motor driver 3 and 6 and another
motor is connected at pin 11 and 14.

Program Explanation

In program, first of all we defined input and output pin, and then in loop we checks inputs and
sends output according to inputs to output pin for driving motor. For checking input pin we used
if statements.

There are four conditions in this line following robot that we read by using arduino. We have
used two sensor namely left sensor and right sensor.

Input

Output
Movement
Left Motor

Left Sensor Right Sensor

Right Motor

Of Robot

LS

RS

LM1

LM2

RM1

RM2

Stop

Turn Right

Turn Left

Forward

We write program according to the conditions shown in table above.

Required Components
Arduino
In our Project we have used a microcontroller to control whole the process of system that is
ARDUINO. Arduino is an open source hardware and very useful for project developments. There
are many types of arduino like Arduino UNO, arduino mega, arduino pro mini, Lilypad etc.
available in the market. Here we have used arduino pro mini in this project as arduino pro mini is
small and so breadboard compatible. To burn program we have used FTDI burner.

L293D Motor Driver

L293D is a motor driver IC which has two channels for driving two motors. L293D has two
inbuilt Transistor Darlington pair for current amplification and a separate power supply pin for
giving external supply to motors.

IR Module:
IR Module is sensor circuit which consists IR LED/photodiode pair, potentiometer, LM358,
resistors and LED. IR sensor transmits Infrared light and photo diode receives the infrared light.

Power Supply

I have added a voltage regulator to get 5 volt for arduino, comparator and motor driver. And a 9
volt battery is used to power the circuit.
Code:
/*------ Program for Line Follower Robot using Arduino----- */
/*-------definning Inputs------*/
#define LS 2
// left sensor
#define RS 3
// right sensor
/*-------definning Outputs------*/
#define LM1 4
// left motor
#define LM2 5
// left motor
#define RM1 6
// right motor
#define RM2 7
// right motor
void setup()
{
pinMode(LS, INPUT);
pinMode(RS, INPUT);
pinMode(LM1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(LM2, OUTPUT);
pinMode(RM1, OUTPUT);
pinMode(RM2, OUTPUT);
}
void loop()
{
if(digitalRead(LS) && digitalRead(RS))
{
digitalWrite(LM1, HIGH);
digitalWrite(LM2, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM1, HIGH);
digitalWrite(RM2, LOW);
}

// Move Forward

if(!(digitalRead(LS)) && digitalRead(RS))

{
digitalWrite(LM1, LOW);
digitalWrite(LM2, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM1, HIGH);
digitalWrite(RM2, LOW);
}

// Turn right

if(digitalRead(LS) && !(digitalRead(RS)))

{

// turn left

digitalWrite(LM1, HIGH);
digitalWrite(LM2, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM1, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM2, LOW);
}
if(!(digitalRead(LS)) && !(digitalRead(RS)))
{
digitalWrite(LM1, LOW);
digitalWrite(LM2, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM1, LOW);
digitalWrite(RM2, LOW);
}
}

// stop