Robotix.gr

XBot is the first robot I ever made. It started off as a computer controlled (via the parallel port) 'robot'. With the aid of a small program that I wrote in C++, I could control the robot using the arrow keys from my keyboard. After that I learned how to program the PIC1684 microcontroller. It was a matter of few days until I replaced the parallel port control with an onboard controller (PIC16F84) and added some sensors (IR and Ultrasonic). The robot could navigate in an area avoiding any obstacles in its path and it could also perform line-following. A pair of optical encoders was also used to accurately measure the wheel rotation and provide feedback to the microcontroller.

After several days of experimentation (writing code and testing it) with the original XBot, new ideas came up! The new objective that I had in mind was to enhance the robot with a ?self-localisation? ability using its optical encoders. In other words, I wanted the robot to be able to ?know?, at any given time, its exact Cartesian coordinates (x, y and theta). Once this was achieved, the robot could perform far more impressing navigational routines. In order to do that, the PIC16F84 controller was replaced with the more powerful ATMEGA8535 controller and several new peripherals were added.

This article is about a simulator program which was written in C++ programming language in order to experiment with navigational methods, involving algorithms and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), for mobile robots. The first part reviews some basic concepts about mobile robots and the theory behind Artificial Neural Networks. Additionally, in the first part, a C++ library which was written for implementing ANNs is explained. In the second part of the article the techniques used for programming the simulator and the methods employed for controlling the robot are discussed. The article concludes with an overview of the simulator?s performance and suggestions for future work.

This project educates various concepts like micro controller programming, communication of a PDA with the BlueTooth technology, etc. I coined this project a Robo development. The circuit for this Robo is designed such that different motors (Stepper or Servos) can be connected, it has analog port wherein various sensors like light, object and temperature sensors can be connected.

Babycloud is a line follower robot that I built from scratch as an introduction into robotics. Based on the book "Robot building for beginners" by the well known author David Cook, it is able to follow a light or dark line on a dark or light colored surface respectively, by comparing the voltage drop on its sensors; a pair of LDR CdS cells. You can find many more photos and a video of this little cute creation on my personal web site myrobots.gr