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Autonomous Tour Guide Robot by using Ultrasonic Range

Sensors and QR code Recognition in Indoor Environment
SeokJu Lee, Jongil Lim, Girma Tewolde, Jaerock Kwon
Electrical and Computer Engineering
Kettering University
Flint, MI, USA
{lee7704, lim7722, gtewolde, jkwon}@kettering.edu

Abstract- This paper addresses the challenge of mobile robot with automated, efficient, and improved tour experience.
navigation in indoor environments. There is a critical need for During the development of the tour guide robot the project had
cost-effective, reliable, and fairly accurate solutions to meet the
demands of indoor robotic applications. Currently, researchers are to deal with a number of core mobile robotics challenges,
exploring various approaches for this problem. The one we are including navigation, sensor integration, and control.
presenting in this paper is based on QR (Quick Response) codes to The proposed tour guide robot makes good use of popular
provide location references for mobile robots. The mobile robot is technology that combines a Smartphone application with a
equipped with a Smartphone that is programmed to detect and robot technology. The Smartphone and 4 ultrasonic range
read information on QR codes that are strategically placed in the
operating environment of the robot. The mobile robot can perform sensors, 2 in front and 2 in right side are mounted on the tour
the autonomous run throughout the guide route by using real-time guide robot. The tour guide robot is programmed to follow the
QR code recognition. The lab information on QR code is played to wall using ultrasonic range sensors while keeping a distance of
the visitors using Text-to-Speech provided through Android device. about 30cm and avoid collisions with any obstacle such as a
Ultrasonic range sensors which can detect objects and measure door by sensing and measuring the distance using the front
distances with high accuracy are used to implement the wall-
following and obstacle-avoidance behaviors. The collected sonar ultrasonic range sensors. A Smartphone application is
range information by ultrasonic range sensors is processed by a programmed to perform QR code and circle shape recognition.
microcontroller that autonomously controls a tour guide robot. An QR codes and circle shape landmarks are strategically attached
algorithm based on a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) to the wall in a given route. It was observed that recognition
control is applied to the tour guide robot to perform more accurate rate of the QR code reader falls remarkably with the speed of
robot motion control. A Bluetooth technology is used to send
stored information on QR codes from the Smartphone to the tour the tour guide robot. To address this issue circle shapes
guide robot wirelessly. The experimental setup of the tour guide landmark are utilized by attaching them on the walls just before
robot along with the successful implementation of the efficient the QR codes. The circle shapes can be easily recognized even
method for a navigation technique is presented. while the robot is moving. When the tour guide robot detects
Index Terms— Mobile robot, Tour guide robot, Robot the circle shape landmark, its speed gets reduced to allow
navigation, QR code, Landmark, Ultrasonic range sensor, PID effective recognition of the QR code.
control, Bluetooth technology In order to show the feasibility and effectiveness of our work,
this paper presents the design and implementation of the
proposed tour guide robot, experimental results of the
I. INTRODUCTION
navigation and some experiences about the actual challenges.
Today, robots are no longer a thing of science fiction films. The rest of this paper is organized as follows: Section II
From cleaning robots to medical robots, they are ubiquitous and presents a brief summary of related work in the literature;
are becoming a significant part of people's lives. As robots Section III presents our system implementation details. Section
assume more and more roles in people's daily lives, their IV discusses the experimental results, followed by the
influence on society continues to grow. Robotic vacuum conclusion in section V.
cleaners, security, and surveillance applications are some
example of successful indoor robot application. Another case of II. RELATED WORKS
important real world applications of indoor service robots is the
use of autonomous mobile robots as tour guides in museums or A number of related works in building tour guide robots has
exhibitions. The work presented in this paper is focused on the been identified in the literature. Each of them used various
development of an indoor autonomous mobile robot that can be sensors and had a unique method of navigation and localization.
used as a tour guide for campus tours, for example during For example, Jinny [1] is a tour guide robot that has been
University Open Houses. The goal is to provide the visitors tested in actual environments like in an office building in KIST
and in the exhibit hall. It used two laser finders and two infrared

978-1-4799-4774-4/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE

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sensors for navigation, and a Monte Carlo based probabilistic the QR code and the camera, using an adjustable mounting
map matching scheme for localization. structure.
In another related work an interactive tour guide robot called Belgorod State Technological University [13] developed a
Urbano [2] was designed to be implemented as a tour guide at machine vision system (MVS) for mobile robot navigation. The
exhibitions. The Urbano robot is equipped with a four wheeled MVS identifies artificial landmarks on images from a video
synchro-drive locomotion system and two sonar sensors and camera with pan-tilt mechanism and allows the robot to
one infrared sensor, which allows detecting obstacles. The calculate the deviation from the desired course. MVS includes
platform has also two onboard PCs and one touch screen. one camera and onboard computer which runs software that
A tour guide robot from Central Michigan University called allows searching for artificial landmarks in the environment and
CATE (Central Automated Tour Experience) [3], [4] uses radio provides control of the robot drive in order to eliminate the
frequency identification (RFID) and Sonar in order to navigate. course deviation calculated on the basis of information from
It has a simple design and a localization method that relies on artificial landmarks. QR codes instead of artificial landmarks
RFID technology. But due to the limited range of the passive can be used for mobile robot localization or navigation in
RFID reader, if the robot misses to read a reference tag it could indoor environment because QR codes are capable of
easily be lost. performing in various ways by storing directional information
Kulyukin, et al. [5] propose a tour guide robot based on and by providing x, y coordinates from using the codes.
RFID technology to assist visually impaired people for reaching
their destination. Ultrasonic range sensors are also used to give III. IMPLEMENTATION DETAILS
the robot capability to detect objects. There are efficient
methods in the literature for localization and navigation of In the development of the tour guide robot controlled by a
mobile robots using passive RFID [6]-[9]. Our navigation microcontroller, hardware and software design techniques are
method using QR codes will be more efficient compared to needed. This section presents the hardware design of the major
navigation method using RFID tags because QR codes are components of the tour guide robot. Fig. 1 shows the proposed
substantially cheaper and easier to produce. Furthermore, QR tour guide robot platform as the test-bed for the experiments
codes are easy to install as navigational landmarks and they can and also a deployment of the hardware components.
be easily changed.
The University of Deusto Avda [10] proposed indoor
navigation and product recognition technique to provide blind
people shopping support system. For navigation and guidance,
the system uses RFID and Smartphone technology to enable
accessible shopping for blind people in Supermarket.
Smartphones have several features that can be used in robotics
[11]. One of them is a rotation sensor. It allows a Smartphone to
measure orientation and detect direction status of the
Smartphone. When applied to a robot, the sensor performs to
determine an orientation of a robot.
Suriyon, et al. [12] proposed the design and implementation
of a guide robot by using QR code recognition. The robot uses a
QR code as a landmark and implements navigation system that
can perform the autonomous run throughout the guide route.
This guide robot has a laptop PC mounted on it recognizing QR
codes and also to control the robot. Instead of using the laptop,
our work uses a microcontroller and a Smartphone for the robot
control and QR code recognition, respectively, thus resulting in
a low-cost and light-weight solution.
The use of the QR codes has the following benefits: it does
not cost much to install, its installation is simple, and it can be
easily modified to change the guide route when necessary. Fig. 1. The proposed Tour Guide Robot platform. The robot is composed of
However, one of the main challenges with this technology is microcontroller, motor shield, 4 ultrasonic range sensors, and Smartphone.
that the recognition rate of a QR code reader falls when the
distance between the reader and the QR code increases. The
problem could be addressed by adjusting the distance between
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A. Hardware Design of the Tour Guide Robot is the execution of the circle shape reader by pressing
The Atmega328 based Arduino UNO R3 Microcontroller is "OpenCV" button. The third step in Fig. 3, (3) shows
used as the brain to implement this system. A Bluetooth module implementation of the circle shape reader to detect circle shape
and multiple sensors are controlled by the microcontroller. The landmarks. If the circle shape reader detects more than three
body of the tour guide robot is designed using DF Robot four- circle shape landmarks, a Smartphone in turn sends using
wheel-drive (4WD) platform. It is suitable as an inexpensive Bluetooth command to instruct the tour guide robot to reduce
platform for research related projects. A motor shield allows the the robot’s wheel speed to prepare for recognition of QR codes
microcontroller to drive motors. The motor shield control is without any problem. The fourth step in Fig. 3, (4) shows
based on the DFRobot L298 [14] shown in Fig. 2, (A). In our implementation of the QR code reader to detect QR codes.
design, we use it to control the driving speed and direction of After the QR code is recognized, the Smartphone sends
the mobile robot. As shown in Fig. 2, (B), the Bluetooth module command to instruct the tour guide robot to run in autonomous
HC-06 [15] is used for communication between the robot navigation mode. As a final step, a text-to-speech
microcontroller and a Smartphone. As shown in Fig. 2, (C), 4 function is performed through the “Speak out” function as
ultrasonic sensors are used to implement the wall-following and shown in Fig. 3, (5) automatically to explain lab information if
obstacle-avoidance behaviors. Ref. [16] offers details about the the QR code contains information is related to the lab. After
ultrasonic range sensor units used in this design. The ultrasonic pressing the "OpenCV" button, the mobile application can
range sensor can detect objects from 2 cm to 500 cm. A execute automatically from step (3) to step (5) repeatedly.
Smartphone, Nexus 4, is adopted to implement a mobile
application (app) called Tour Guide Robot Application.

Fig. 2. From left to right, pictures of (A) DFRobot L298 DC motor driver Fig. 3. Screenshot of the implementation of the Smartphone application for the
shield , (B) HC-06 Bluetooth module, and (C) HC-SR04 Ultrasonic sensor. control of the tour guide robot and speaking the information on the QR code

C. Robot Motion
B. Software Design and Implementation
As shown in Fig. 3, a mobile application is developed to 1. Wall-following and obstacle-avoidance using sensors
demonstrate a simple control scenario for the tour guide robot. The tour guide robot applied an algorithm based on a
The proposed mobile application utilizes libraries available proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller to fulfill a task
from Zebra Crossing (Zxing) [17] and Open Source Computer as wall-following behavior. The collected sonar range
Vision (OpenCV) [18] web sites, respectively to implement a information is utilized as feedbacks for the PID algorithm. This
QR code and a circle shape recognition. The Android is used to control robot’s wheel speeds to maintain the set point
application was then developed to meet the requirements of the of 30cm distance parallel to the wall.
tour guide robot. Android offers a Text-To-Speech (TTS) The tour guide robot also incorporates obstacle avoidance
function which is used to speak the information on the QR obstacle behavior using the front of two ultrasonic range
codes for the user. sensors. We assume that there are only door obstacles in the
The first step in Fig. 3, (1) is to establish a Bluetooth experimental environment. In Fig. 4, Dist_sensor implies the
connection to the tour guide robot. The connection can be horizontal distance between the two ultrasonic sensors. DL and
achieved by pressing “Connect to device” button on the mobile DR are the distances from left sensor to the wall and from right
application. After the application makes the Bluetooth sensor to the wall respectively. Distance (D) is the length of the
connection to the tour guide robot, the second step in Fig. 3, (2) gap between DL and DR. The angle (θ1) can be obtained by
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Θ1 = arctan(D/Dist_sesnor). (1) In Fig 5, the door is identical to the shape of isosceles triangle
because the length of the two sides is the same. Therefore, the
In order to perform obstacle avoidance behavior by the tour angle (θ4) is equal to the angle (θ5). First rotation angle is
guide robot, three rotation angles are required and calculated computed by (2). The tour guide robot will be rotated by angle
using the following equations: (θ2) to align itself parallel to the door and the robot moves
straight ahead until the right sensor on the right side does not
Θ2 = 90° - Θ1 (2) detect the door anymore. Then, the robot moves straight ahead
by the length of the robot’s body to avoid collision with the
Θ3 = 180 – Θ5 (3)
door. The second rotation angle is calculated by (3). The tour
Θ4 = Θ5 =(180° - θ2) / 2 (4) guide robot will be rotated by angle (θ3) given by equation (3)
and the robot continues to approach the wall until the front of
the left sensor detects distance 30 cm. Then, the robot will be
rotated by third rotation angle calculated by (4). After avoiding
a door, the robot resumes its wall-following behavior again.

2. Autonomous Robot Navigation using QR code

Fig. 4. Implementation of two ultrasonic range sensors. Dist_sensor and

distance (D) form the base and height of the right-angled triangle, respectively.

Fig. 6. Information obtained from QR code recognition helps to aid autonomous

robot motion. The information in QR code is stored as follows. (A) Turn Right,
(B) Go Straight, (C) Turn Left, (D) LAB Information, and (E) Avoid Obstacle.

Fig. 6 shows an implementation of an autonomous navigation

method for the tour guide robot using real-time QR code
recognition. Each QR code stores some information to aid the
robot navigation as shown in Fig. 6. The dimensions of the
actual QR code are 3 cm x 3 cm for the experiment, but it could
be adjusted based on the desired recognition distance. The QR
codes and circle shape landmarks printed on regular white
sheets of paper. When the circle shape reader detects more than
Fig. 5. Obstacle-avoidance behavior using two ultrasonic range sensors. The three circles, the Smartphone realizes that the tour guide robot
robot avoids a door as an obstacle in the experimental environment.
is approaching the QR code, so it sends information to the tour
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guide robot to reduce its wheel speed to allow reliable operation The testing environment for the tour guide robot is shown in
of the QR code reader. Fig. 7. It is made up of the main hallway in the Electrical and
Computer Engineering lab area at Kettering University. Eight
IV. RESULTS landmarks were placed next to the doors of the laboratory
rooms in a given route. To demonstrate the robots obstacle
A. Map of Working Area in Indoor Environment avoidance capabilities, two of the lab rooms were left open for
the testing. In the test experiment conducted, the tour guide
robot reached from start point to destination point following the
guidance received from the QR code landmarks. Fig. 8 shows
an actual photographic image of the experimental environment.

B. Uncertainties of Ultrasonic Range Sensors

There are uncertainties when using ultrasonic range sensors
to recognize objects near the tour guide robot. If the angle (θ1)
of the door is large, then accurate distance information cannot
be obtained as shown in Fig. 9. In our experimental results, the
accuracy of the distance information is decreased when the
angle (θ1) is larger than 35°. For more robust obstacle detection
and avoidance, in the future we plan to use additional ultrasonic
range sensors at the front.

Fig. 7. Map of the experimental environment. The arrow and the green line
indicates a door as an obstacle and a ideal route from start point to destination
for the tour guide robot, respectively. The black dots show the locations of the
landmarks.

Fig. 9. Uncertainty of ultrasonic range sensor. The uncertainty is mostly

affected by the amount of the angle the obstacle is tilted.

C. Demonstration of Navigation Method Using Landmarks

Preliminary experiments with the tour guide robot
demonstrated promising results. The tour guide robot has been
able to successfully recognize the QR codes that help to aid the
robot navigation and provide directional information as well as
information about the labs encountered. In addition to the QR
codes, the circle shapes were utilized successfully to provide
Fig. 8. Photographic image of the main Electrical and Computer Engineering
laboratory corridor. additional layer of control that allowed the robot to slow down
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