[General] Automatic Guided Vehicle

[ashR]

I am trying to make an AUTOMATIC GUIDED VEHICLE.This Vehicle can reach its destination avoiding obstaclesa in the room.

I am planning to use Arduino and Ultrasonic Sensors for the same.
1- I am not sure how to map the room using the ultrasonic sensors.
2- Will i have to make use of MATLAB?
3- Is my approach correct?

 

[BradtheRad]

Your project has built-in hurdles to overcome. Have you solved these?
For instance:
* How to detect obstacles with soundwaves.
* How to discern direction and distance of obstacles.
* How your robot knows what direction to travel to reach the destination.
* How your robot keeps track of its position in the room.

 

[ashR]

1. The ultrasonic sensors will send a high freq sig that will travel twice the distance between the obstacle and bot and will return to the bot where it will be sensed back by the sensor. Using approximate formulas dist can be calculated.
2. To map the room, I am thinking of mounting the sensors on a rotating base controlled by a motor. The base will make a 360 rotation to complete the room and for every turn made , the sensor will calculate the dist of obstacle in that direction.

My concern is how to store all this data in a way that the bot can again use it.

3. I haven't really thought about giving command to the bot. As of now it will be a predefined path that can be mentioned in the code.
4. Once I map the room the bot will have data about destination and the point it started from.

 

[BradtheRad]

Inside computer memory, create an XY grid which represents the room. Each square is 1 or 2 or 3 inches on a side. Start off with all squares marked blank. Whenever the bot detects an obstacle, mark that square 'off limits' on the grid.

Your rotating sensor is at the center of a sweep. It has polar coordinates, rather than XY coordinates. You need to convert from one coordinate system to the other. The formulae use sines and cosines.

Your sensor scheme needs to imitate a bat's acoustic sonar. Have you ever heard of anyone doing this? It will be a big accomplishment simply to detect an obstacle a few inches in front of the bot.

 

[ashR]

One problem with sensor is that the measuring angle of ultrasonic sensor is 30 deg. I need a much narrow angle . Can i modify the sensors using some kind of sound absorbers near the transmitter such that the beam width is much narrow?

 

[andre_luis]

You could think about using a parabolic hornet over the piezo capsule in order to provide better directivity to the sound wave. In addition you need somehow performs a pre-calibrate process to determine the boundary of the region on which it is soposed to be mapped.