FPGA Cyclone II based the Mobile Robot Control System

Abstract

Mobile robots are expected to be used in harsh and non-organized environments. Such as the applications that robots need to Collection of information from complex conditions for their functioning which have become very common, especially in places that are hard to reach by humans. The wireless capability, avoid obstacles and speed/position controllers have taken great interest in the design of mobile robots because of the extensive use in industrial and service fields. Therefore, the realization of efficient and robust robot system still a challenging task. This paper presents a mobile robot with an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) controller implemented on Altera FPGA mini-board with wireless capability to move to a specific distance by avoiding the obstacle. This system uses Nios II/e soft-core processor instantiated in ANN control of the motors based on the data provided by the sensors. The design shows flexibility in hardware and software, where the design can be modified easily by inserting more complex function due to the capacity of FPGA in contrast to existing microcontroller or microprocessor -based designs. In comparison with previous research, the application of robots based on the existing design is the presence of microcontroller such as Arduino with FPGA. In the research, the only FPGA offering the possibility of adding more complex functions to the ability of the robot is used.