MAHENDRA ENGINEERING COLLEGE

(AUTONOMOUS)

DEPARTMENT OF MECHATRONICS

PRESENTATION SKILLS AND TECHNICAL SEMINAR

A LINE-FOLLOWER ROBOT USING

Yaswanth Kumar.S
171101050
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INTRODUCTION

For my final project, I decided to make a line-follower robot. This simple robot is designed to be
able to follow a black line on the ground without getting off the line too much. The robot has
two sensors installed underneath the front part of the body, and two DC motors drive wheels
moving forward. A circuit inside takes an input signal from two sensors and controls the speed
of wheels’ rotation. The control is done in such a way that when a sensor senses a black line, the
motor slows down or even stops. Then the difference of rotation speed makes it possible to
make turns. For instance, in the figure on the right, if the sensor somehow senses a black line,
the wheel on that side slow down and the robot will make a right turn.

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1. Theory of operation
i) How to sense a black line
The sensors used for the project are Reflective Object Sensors, 0PB710F already ready
in the Electronic Lab. The single sensor consists of an infrared emitting diode and a NPN
Darlington phototransistor. When a light emitted from the diode is reflected off an object and
back into the phototransistor, output current is produced, depending on the amount of
infrared light, which triggers the base current of the phototransistor. In my case, the amount
of light reflected off a black line is much less than that of a white background, so we can
detect the black line somehow by measuring the current. (This current is converted voltage.)
ii) How to control a DC motor
Instead of applying a constant voltage across a DC motor, we repeat switching on and
off the motor with a fixed voltage (Vcc) applied to the motor. This is done by sending a train
of PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) pulses to a power MOSFET in order to turn it on and off.
Then, the motor sees the average voltage while it depends on duty cycle of PWM pulses. The
speed of rotation is proportion to this average voltage.By PWM method, it’s easier to control
the DC motor than by directly controlling the voltage across it. All we have to do is to
modulate pulse width, in order words, a duty cycle. Also, a power MOSFET consumes only
negligible power in switching.

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2. Circuit diagram
• My circuit consists of two parts: PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) part and a sensor part. First,we take a look at the
sensor part. The photodiode turns on the phototransistor and then the output current is converted to output voltage
through the first op-amp circuit. The R6 is a variable resistor, so that we can tune the scale of output voltage. The
second op-amp circuit is added to change the polarity of voltage. (Positive CV is necessary later.) One thing we should
know is that –Vcc to Vcc of voltage rail is needed, not from 0 to Vcc.
• In the circuit built-up, LM747 Dual Operational Amplifiers were used.
• Second, in the PWM section, two 555 timers (LM555) are used to produce a pulse-width modulated train of pulses.
The timer on the left works in astable mode to generate regular square-wave pulses. The frequency is fixed by the
values of R1, R2 and C1 here. Then, this output Q1 is connected to the trigger pin of the second timer that works in
monostable mode this time. As you can see in the diagram, at a falling edge of Q1, a pulse is triggered and stay high
during some time. The time (width of a pulse) is purely determined by the value of R3and C3 if CV (Control Voltage)
pin is not connected at all. (Look at the pulse diagrams of Q1 and Q2 at the bottom of the circuit diagram.) CV plays a
role of changing the threshold level of a timer. (Without CV, threshold = 2/3 * Vcc) CV just becomes the triggering
voltage level. Therefore, the higher the CV is, the longer it takes time until discharge. In this way, the duty cycle of
output pulses Q2 can be controlled. Back to my circuit, the output voltage of the sensor part provides CV. For
instance, if any sensor senses a black line, the current from the photodiode decreases, the CV drops, the duty cycle
gets low and the motor slows down.
• Third, the PWM pulses are supplied to the gate of a power MOSFET (IRF520) to switch the DC motor on and off. Then,
the DC motor only sees the average voltage proportional to the duty cycle of the pulses. When CV is high, so is the
duty cycle and the motor turns fast.
• In my robot, the distance between sensors and the ground is fixed. So, when sensor is off the black line (The sensor
sees white paper.), CV keeps its maximum value and both motors keep turning in a constant speed. As soon as the
sensor enters the black line part, CV drops down and thus duty cycle decreases, which means the slowdown of a
wheel.
• Component Values:
R1=6K, R2=1K, R3=20K, R4=10, R5=82, R6=5K(variable), R7=1K
C1=1μF, C2=0.1μF, C3=0.1μF,

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3. Building the robot
• Before starting to build a real circuit, I built is on the lab breadboard and verified
everything worked fine. Then, I bought a blank breadboard from ECE storeroom. I put
together each electronic part and wires on the board and soldered them all. (The work
would have been much easier to use a PCB (Printed Circuit Board).) After that, I checked if
there is any bad connection, and tested if the circuit generates correct pulses at each
point. (i.e. Q1 and Q2) This whole work took quite a time, much longer than I expected.
• For a robot body, I bought a container and two flying wheel toys at the Wal-Mart. With
every part ready, I drilled holes to fix two DC motors, some supporting aluminum plates
and sensors in front4. Building the robot.Before starting to build a real circuit, I built is on
the lab breadboard and verified everything worked fine. Then, I bought a blank
breadboard from ECE storeroom. I put together each electronic part and wires on the
board and soldered them all. (The work would have been much easier to use a PCB
(Printed Circuit Board).) After that, I checked if there is any bad connection, and tested if
the circuit generates correct pulses at each point. (i.e. Q1 and Q2) This whole work took
quite a time, much longer than I expected.
• For a robot body, I bought a container and two flying wheel toys at the Wal-Mart. With
every part ready, I drilled holes to fix two DC motors, some supporting aluminum plates
and sensors in front

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4. Result
For a test, I held my robot in the air and I approached a white paper to
sensors. Then, both wheels rotated as expected and they slowed down when
either the paper moved away or sensors passed across a black line. Next, I put it
down on the track, but unfortunately, it didn’t move. I found the torque of
motors not enough to drive my robot. Even though the chosen DC motor was
slowest and gave highest torque among other DC motors in the lab, it wasn’t
enough.
For solving this problem, I will have to find a suitable DC motor with large
torque.Overall, the robot project wasn’t successful, but it was quite a fun to go
through all the process. I also realized that there were many things to consider
practically such as installation of motors, building up a circuit by soldering and
putting all parts together. This experience hopefully would be helpful in th
future work.

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THANK YOU

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