ISSN (Online) 2581-9429

IJARST
International Journal of Advanced Research in Science & Technology (IJARST)

Volume 5, Issue 6, May 2020

Obstacle Avoiding Arduino Vehicle

1
Anita Duvey, 2Chandesh Chaube, 3Satish Ranbhise
Shree L.R. Tiwari College of Engineering Thane
[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

Abstract: The use of autonomous systems in the world to perform relevant and delicate task is fast growing.
However, its application in various fields cannot be over emphasized. This paper presents an obstacle
detection and avoidance system for an unmanned Arduino vehicle. The system consists of Ultrasonic
sensors, an Arduino uno, motor drivers and a gear DC motor. The ultrasonic sensors are implemented to
detect obstacles on the robot’s path by sending signals to an interfaced Arduino which is then passed to
motor drivers. The motor drivers redirects the robot to move in an alternate direction by actuating the motor
wheels order to avoid the detected obstacle. In conclusion, an obstacle detection circuit was successfully
implemented using ultrasonic sensors modules which were placed at the front of the robot to throw both
light and sound waves at any obstacle and when a reflection is received, a low output is sent to the motor
boards which interprets the output and makes the robot to stop and move in opposite direction.

Keywords: Obstacle Avoidance, Arduino, Unmanned, Ultrasonic, Robot

1. INTRODUCTION
The application and complexity of mobile robots are slowly growing every day. They are gradually making their way
into real world settings in different fields such as military, medical fields, space exploration, and everyday
housekeeping. Motion being a vital characteristic of mobile robots in obstacle avoidance and path recognition has a
major impact on how people react and perceive an autonomous system. This enables an autonomous robot to be able to
navigate from one place to another without human intervention. Computer vision and range sensors are primary object
detection methods used in mobile robots’ detection. Computer vision as an obstacle detection method is more rigorous
and expensive technique than the range sensors’ method. However, most commercial autonomous robots use range
sensor to detect obstacles. The use of radar, infrared (IR) sensor and ultrasonic sensor for developing an obstacle
detection system had started as early as the 1980’s . Although, after testing these technologies it was concluded that the
radar technology was the most suitable for use as the other two technology options were prone to environmental
constraints such as rain, ice, snow, dust and dirt. The radar approach was also a very cost effective technology both for
the present and the future. Then presented a method using a single charge-coupled device (CCD) camera in conjunction
with a spherically shaped curved reflector which enables ultra-wide angle imaging. The sensors are not limited to
obstacle detection. Other sensors may be used to extract different features in plants for plant characterization, allowing
an autonomous robot to give the proper fertilizer in the proper amounts to different plants . Also made use of cameras
to aid navigation and obstacle detection for a robot in searching for meteorites on the Antarctic continent. Their were
used stereo vision to aid in dead reckoning for planetary rovers.
In modern days, sonar was used for vehicle localization and navigation respectively. Some developed an algorithm for
obstacle detection and avoidance using a sonar ring placed around the robot. Unfortunately, the major drawback of
sonar is that a single sensor is inadequate to acquire enough information about environment around an autonomous
vehicle. Often times several rings of sonar sensors are connected together for optimum performance. This is usually
cumbersome and expensive for implementation. However, despite the aforementioned limitations, sonar is still a good
safety net for obstacle detection. Also, the use of vision and laser scanner for unmanned ground vehicle to avoid
obstacle. Support Vehicle machine (SVM) has been proposed for creating local path for an unmanned ground vehicle.
Also, the development of an unmanned ground vehicle system for remote- controlled surveillance. A reliability and
failure tests in unmanned ground vehicle has been carried out. A study on the use of industrial robot in various
industries in America has been conducted in. Finally, the use of ultrasonic sensor for an obstacle avoidance robot
vehicle to create a clear path for locomotion has been presented in latest technology. The focus of this study is placed
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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
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International Journal of Advanced Research in Science & Technology (IJARST)

Volume 5, Issue 6, May 2020

on designing a simple, cost effective obstacle avoidance autonomous system using one pairs of heterogonous sensors
and evaluate its performance.

2. METHODS
This section discussed the compositions of the hardware components and software implementations used for designing
and constructing the project. The fabrication of the chassis and casing of the system are also discussed.

2.1. HARDWARE SETUP

The system consists of Arduino uno, 2wheels drive robotic chassis, two DC BO motors, L293 motor driver, sensor,
Switch to on and off the system, 9v batteries and connectors for power supply, jumper wires, caster, nut bolts and
spacer and other supporting tools. Sensors were used namely: the ultrasonic sensor in order to improve on sensitivity
and reliability of existing systems.

Figure 1: Circuit Diagram

The sonar system is used in HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor to determine distance to an object like bats do. It offers
excellent non-contact range detection from about 2 cm to 400 cm or 1feet to 13 feet. Its operation is not affected by
sunlight or black material. The ultrasonic sensor emits the short and high frequency signal. If they detect any object,
then they reflect back echo signal which is taken as input to the sensor through Echo pin .Firstly user initialize
Trigger and Echo pin as low and push the robot in forward direction. When obstacle is detected Echo pin will give
input as high to microcontroller. Pulse In function is used for calculating the time of distance from the obstacle. Every
time the function waits for pin to go high and starts timing, then timing will be stopped when pin go to low. It returns
the pulse length in microseconds or when complete pulse was not received within the timeout it returns. The timing
has been determined means it gives length of the pulse and will show errors in shorter pulses. Pulses from
10microseconds to 3 minutes in length are taken into consideration. After determining the time, it converts into a
distance. If the distance of object is moderate then speed of robot get reduced and will take left turn, If obstacle is
present in left side then it will take right turn. If the distance of object is short then speed of robot get reduced and will
turn in backward direction and then can go in left or right direction. This robot was built with an Arduino
development board on which microcontroller is placed.
Arduino board is connected with DC Motor through Motor driver board (pin10, pin11, pin12, pin13) which provides
power to the actuators. Actuators are used to move robot in Forward, Backward, Left and Right directions. The brief
description of inputs pins for movement of robot is given in below in table. The movement of robot will be stop
whenever there is an obstacle is present on its path which can be detected by ultrasonic sensors. Ultrasonic sensors
give time in length to the microcontroller as an input for further actions.

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IJARST
International Journal of Advanced Research in Science & Technology (IJARST)

Volume 5, Issue 6, May 2020

2.2. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION

he system was implemented in C++ using the Arduino software. Figure shows the flowchart of the robot at
initialization of the sensors which becomes active when the motor is actuated to move in the forward direction
simultaneously. The ultrasonic transmits a sound at 37 KHz and then waits to receive a corresponding echo from the
sent signal. The system calculates the distance ahead of the obstacle once the time is estimated ahead given by: where
D Distance between the sensor and the detected object. Time Between transmitted and received reflected wave. V
Ultrasonic wave propagation speed in air at normal speed 344 m/s.

Figure 2: Flow Chart of Developed System

As illustrated in Figure 2, if the distance ahead is less than 40 m, the controller prompts the motor to turn at 90-degree
angle and move in the forward direction. The ulltrasonic sensor sends out its signal once the ultrasonic part is clear and
if it also detects an obstacle, motor is prompted to rotate in an anticlockwise direction for a reverse of the car to take
place, it then turns to the right and continue in the forward direction.

2.3. DATA COLLECTION

Varieties of sensors are available which can be used for the detection of obstacles some of the very popular sensors are:
Infrared sensors (IR), Ultrasonic sensors, Cameras, which can be used as a part of Computer Vision, Sonar. It can
measure the distance in its field of view of about thousands to hundreds points In the design of robot, we are using
ultrasonic sensors for obstacle detection and avoidance The ultrasonic sensors continuously emits the frequency
signals, when obstacle is detected this signals are reflected back which then considered as input to the sensor. The
ultrasonic sensor consists of a multi vibrator, which fixed at its base. The multi vibrator is combination of a resonator
and vibrator the ultrasonic waves generated by the vibration are delivers to the resonator. Ultrasonic sensor actually
consists of two parts: the emitter which produces a 40 kHz sound wave and detector which detects 40 kHz sound wave
and sends electrical signal back to the microcontroller.
HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors are used which consist of 4 pins VCC, Trigger, Echo and GND Features of Ultrasonic
Sensor:
• Compact and light weight
• High sensitivity and high pressure
• High reliability
• Power consumption of 20Ma
• Pulse in/out communication
• Narrow acceptance angle
• Provides exact, non-contact separation estimations within 2 cm to 3 m
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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARST
International Journal of Advanced Research in Science & Technology (IJARST)
(IJ

Volume 5, Issue 6, May 2020

• The explosion point LED shows estimations in advancement

• 3-pin
pin header makes it simple to connect utilizing a servo development link

Figure 3: Data Collection

2.4. SIGNAL PROCESSING

The outputs from sensors used on the board are all connected to the Arduino microcontroller board. Since the data
obtained from the sensors are digital i.e. the ultra sensor module sends a high bit signal when no reflection is received.
These are the input devices used in the vehicle avoidance system and since they are digital, they are connected to the
digital pins of the Arduino. On receiving these data from the sensors, the Arduino microcontroller is able to decide on
what decisions to make with the data using a set of instructions that have been put into the memory. The output devices
in control by the Arduino microcontroller are dc motors to control direction of car and for the blade cutting the grass.

2.5. CHASSIS DESIGN

A sketch of the car was designed using Autodesk investor software shown in Figure-5.
Figure 5. During this design process,
various modifications were made to the sketch and errors were corrected to enable proper meshing
meshi of parts and
simulation. The design was fabricated
ated using Aluminium plate with a thickness of 1mm. The robotic frame work is
triangular shape with two rear wheels and a front wheel. The rear wheels are made up of plastics, which are attached
directly to the servo motor.

Figure 4: Chassis Structure

3. RESULTS
The result is obtained for obstacle avoidance robot using Arduino, if the robot moves forward if any obstacle detect iit
rotates at 90- degree angle and moves in right side where there is no obstacles it moves in forward direction, to sense
the obstacle
acle ultrasonic sensor is used. We used universal wheel to rotate the vehicle smoothly.

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 ISSN (Online) 2581-9429
IJARST
International Journal of Advanced Research in Science & Technology (IJARST)

Volume 5, Issue 6, May 2020

Figure 5: Obstacle Avoiding Arduino Vehicle

4. CONCLUSION
This project developed an obstacle avoiding robot to detect and avoid obstacles in its path. The robot is built on the
Arduino platform for data processing and its software counterpart helped to communicate with the robot to send
parameters for guiding movement. For obstacle detection, ultrasonic distance sensors were used that provided a wider
field of detection. The robot is fully autonomous and after the initial loading of the code, it requires no user intervention
during its operation. When placed in unknown environment with obstacles, it moved while avoiding all obstacles with
considerable accuracy.

5. FUTURE SCOPES
In order to optimize the movement of the robot, we have many considerations for improvement. However, most of
these ideas will cost more money and time as well. In future cameras can be used to detect the obstacle however, it is
better to get CCD or industrial use ones to get clear and fast pictures. Even the ones we mentioned in the camera holder
part will be better because of the special software.

REFERENCE
[1]. Ming Chang, Descriptive Geometry and Engineering Graphics 3 ed. Huazhong University of Science and
Technology press, 2016.
[2]. Shiquan Zhou, Fundamentals for Mechanical Manufacturing Process in Huazhong University of Science and
Technology press, 2017
[3]. Jiao Ni, Guoqing Li, Qin Qian, Mechanical of Materials, Huazhong University of Science and Technology
press, 2017
[4]. Prajwalasimha S N, “Design And Development Of Real Time Self Navigation Robot For Agricultural
Activities”IJAREEIE,Vol 5 issue 5 may 2018
[5]. Kirti Bhagat, Sayali Deshmukh, Shraddha Dhonde, Sneha Ghag, “Obstacle Avoidance Robot”, Bachelor of
computer engineering, IJSETR, volume 5, issue 2, February 2018.
[6]. Jitihsha Agrawal, “Solar Operated low cost Obstacle avoidance Robot”, Department of EXTC, YMCA
university of science and technology (state government university) Faridabad, IJSRD, volume 3, issue 7 2015
ISSN 2321-0613.

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