Thursday 16 August 2012

ANNOVATEUR - Adi's BOT



Hey all!,  

About the machine in the picture:
AN-NOVA-TEUR
Which stands for ANalog inNOVAtion amaTEUR
My 3rd line follower bot, a definite improvisation on its predecessors
A line follower, completed in March 2012 after 4 months of work, mostly post midnight

BOT Description
  • Body  : Glass fibre PCB. Designed for a low CG. Lightweight,
  • Drive Assembly: Pololu Micrometal Gear Motors 1000 rpm driven by TB6612FNG motor driver bought from sparkfun
  • Microcontroller: 32 bit ARM Cortex M3 based LM3S9B96, made by TI Fitted with accelerometer, for precise calculations for turning, for optimizing speed constants during second run
  • Line sensor: Self designed, home-made 10 IR-pair based analog sensor array, laser printed with cloth-ironed on a copper clad plate.
  • Battery pack: 4 Lithium-ion BL5C soldered in series to generate around 14V
  • About the Code: Elements for ambient compensation, PWM Motor control for implementation of PID based control algorithm
  • Performed at : APOGEE 2012, BITS,Pilani
  • Accolades : 1st Position at Track-o-Mania, Apogee 2012, BITS,Pilani

Line followers are many but "ANNOVATEUR" is one. Class apart feature of this bot is the self fabricated, designed Infrared sensor Analog Array, which allows for much more flexibility in the control algorithm. This is the feature that makes ANNOVATEUR just not any other bot, but 'My Bot'.

The path for a plain hobby to something meaningful wouldn't have been possible without the ardent support of my mentor Prof. Samir Lohani. I'm highly grateful to such a stalwart who always provided his humble support even through his busy schedule as a railway officer. His lines of coding are capable of springing dead machines to life and this is aptly proved by a couple of patents that he has to his name. With hands-on experience on both Mechanical and Electronics Engineering, I couldn't have found a better guide, a better friend.

Though this is just a beginning with my passion, endurance, innovation and the guidance of my mentor, I'm sure to come up with many more innovations in future, so keep looking up this space for my future endeavours.

About Me:
Aditya Sharma
                                                                                                         Mech Engg undergrad student
 

Adios !!