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Lab3LineFollowing

Robotics Lab 3: Line Following

Lessons Learned

• The WinAVR program is very sensitive to errors such as not using a semicolon or misplacing a character
• Another thing that I noticed was that either the computer, or the program itself could never make up its mind about what USB com port setting it wanted to be on. Some days it was on com9 and other days com5. It was just a matter of checking the make file and making a few adjustments

Lab Summary

For the most part, the Create maneuvered around the track fairly well using the code that I wrote for it. The wide turns and straight-aways were no match for my coding capabilities. The sharp turns and right angles, however, posed a problem. The way that I wrote my program was with a series of “if” statements that the robot would execute depending on its situation at the time. One situation in which the Create was not able to execute the desired command was when both the robot’s front left and front right cliff sensors were detecting a black line simultaneously. I programmed the robot to drive in a sharp left circle when this occurred. Instead of doing this, however, the robot “seizures” until I turned it off or moved it to another location on the track. This result could have potentially been due to an inherent error on the robot or a complex coding error. With such a vast variety of possibilities where the robot will be faced with a situation in which the front cliff sensors both detected black, it would be difficult to program the robot to react to each situation successfully. One way that I could potentially help the robot better navigate around these sort of situations would be if I installed a cliff sensor at the center front of the robot. Video sensors would also be quite helpful and could map out the entire course for the robot. These sensors are extremely complicated and expensive though, and might be harder to program. Robotic arms loaded with sensors such as cliff sensors would also be useful and give the robot a heads up on turns and other situations before it actually reaches them. These are just a few ways that I could alter the Create to help it better navigate around the track.

Line Following Flowchart

Line Following Code Δ

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