Implementation of the line maze robot with diagonal motion control

Abstract

The wheeled robots have become the interesting and important training kits for students to learn to integrate those skills about hardware circuit designs, firmware programming, motion control, and path planning techniques in these past days. Therefore, a novel line maze robot kit with diagonal path planning capabilities is presented as an example in this paper to help students. The robot uses a 32-bit microcontroller with floating point processing unit to 1) detect the track curve by using optical sensors, 2) use gyro sensor to correct moving angles, 3) control the linear and angular velocities of the robot, and 4) plan a diagonal path from the start to the target. Although students could learn the above-mentioned topics in a special topic project, they may also design their own mechanical structures and hardware circuits to improve furthermore the performance of their robots, and they are happy to join to win prizes in related contests.