Journal of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Soft Computing

Abstract

In this paper, prototype of an energy harvesting mobile robot is presented which harvests energy as soon as its power reserves diminish below a predecided level. The need for restoring power in the prototype mobile robot drives it to auto plug-in with a microcontroller interface of a motor control unit. Development of the system involves making a designing of various parts of a prototype mobile robot. The mobile robot at first follows a line which is nothing but a line following the robot. With the movement of the robot, the battery charge will be decreased. When the charge decreases to less than 50%, the mobile robot then follow the second line to recharge itself by auto plugging into the charging station. After getting fully recharged, the mobile robot again switched to follow the first line. A control circuit is designed to control the line following movement of the mobile robot. An algorithm is also developed that command the control circuit. The control circuit consists of infrared sensor, motor driver circuit with power supply, transmitter circuit, receiver circuit and infrared LED (IR-LED). DC motor is used as an actuator to control the wheel of the mobile robot. An infrared sensor is used to generate high and low frequency in the transmission circuit. High frequency is generated when capacitor’s capacity is low and low frequency is generated when capacitor’s capacity is high. The receiver circuit receives the high and low frequency and sends signal to the program that controls the DC motor according to the analysis result. Thus, the DC motor drives the wheel to control the movement of the mobile robot. The overall success rate of the prototype mobile robot is 83.33% including line following and recharging.

Keywords: Intelligent energy harvesting, Auto-recharging, Emergent situation, Recharging, Capacito