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Maze solving Robot

We have discussed many projects in Robotics before including Line Follower Robot. Maze Solving Robot is similar project but before we discuss about this project, we should know about maze and our objective.

What is Maze?

Maze solving RobotMaze is a type of puzzle with start start and end points including many dead ends.To solve this puzzle we need to find right path in a fastest possible way.

What type of maze we are going to use for our robot?
Usually, this project requires line maze which is black line on a white background.

Our Objective:

We will build a robot which can find its way in a line maze from start point to end point.

Basic Requirements:

Two Motors: Motors will move robot forward(Both motors running) and help it turns towards left(left motor slow and right fast) or right( right motor slow and left fast).

Five Infrared Sensors: Sensors helps robot to find its path and keeps it updated about the line on the floor.With five sensors their are 32 combination possible but many of them are unlikely to occur in our experiment.For ex. 11111(All indicating black) will never occur because their is only one line and this pattern is showing that line on both side of robot including line on which it is moving.


Concept:

Deciding some rules:
Before implementing this project, you should  decide some basic rules which robot must follow. For example if robot face a situation of T or Four Way , in which direction it should turn? Some students go for right hand rule where robot always give preference to right hand side and some go for left hand rule, though both rules are correct, you need to select one of them and teach robot accordingly.

Intersection:

Define intersections ( turns except only right and only left) where robot needs to take decisions.

Storing Information:

Robot should store information about Dead ends(180 degree turns where pattern is five zeroes 00000) and Bad turns.

Algorithm:

Maze
Step 1). The robot will start from the first end and move straight as there is only one line.

Step 2). It will move Left because there is only left direction( no intersection so no storage) where it can move.

Step 3). Move Left again(no intersection, therefore, no storage)

Step 4). Move Left ( Intersection and we apply Left-hand Rule) Store L

Step 5). Take U-Turn ( Reached Dead End) Store value becomes LU

Step 6). Take Left Again ( Intersection and applies left-hand rule) Store value becomes LUL. We move Left but because we took U-turn in the fifth step we now know that we should not have taken

Step 7).To avoid this mistake for the future we will replace LUL to S.

Step 8). Move Straight ( Intersection again but as we are following left-hand rule, we will not turn towards the right, instead we will follow straight Path) and stored value becomes SS

Step 8). Turn right ( Only right available therefore no intersection)

Step 9.) Reach Target.

So SS will correctly guide the robot in the next run.

Useful Links:

Maze Solving Robot
Recursion Solving a Maze
Micro mouse: Intelligent autonomous maze solving robot

Related Video:


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