Theory: by Lol Elner

Obviously the line following robot will need to see the line, therefore we require an light
detector of some sort. We also would like it if the line following robot could do this
regardless of the ambient conditions (is the room dark or light? is it lit by sunlight or
artificial light?). So the robot will also need its own illumination source. The weapon of
choice here will be Infra Red (IR) light.

To make this easy for ourselves the light only needs to be constant... if a white line is
present then it will reflect a lot of IR from our source. If the line is black then we see the
opposite effect.

The circuit

All we need is an IR source, an IR photo-transistor and a couple of resistors! Here are the
resources:

• IR emmiters and detector pairs: UK - Maplins,CH10L and CH11M, or SFH409

and SFH309.

• IR emmiters and detector pairs: US - Solarbotics QRD1114 (this has both in one
package)
On top of these, it would be nice if the signal that we get could be TTL (on or off, 0V,
5V). So to do this we will also require our favourite BEAM chip, the 74AC240, heres the
circuit:
Circuit operation is simple.... no line to follow put the input to the inverter high, and
therefore the inverter outputs a low, line detection turns on the transistor (or photodiode)
and thus the inverter gets a low and outputs a high. If your robot is following a black line
on a white page, then add another invereter after or before the first.

So what should the values for R1 and R2 be? and how do I set up the 74AC240 chip
exactly..... The value for R1 affects the source IR brightness, for maximum brightness we
set R1 to give the maximum allowable forward current for the IR led. So what should it
be?? Well, look at the datasheet for your LED, lookup the value of the maximum forward
current. Now a simple bit of electronic theory tells us V=IR, I will assume you are using
5V because this is the volatge the 74AC240 should be run at (6V is OK... 4 AA
batteries).

Now lets say that the max forward current is 100mA so we have 5V = 100mA * R ,
therefore:

5/100*10^-3 = R = 50ohms.

Experiment with different values until you get a sensitivity that you are happy with... too
bright and the detector will see it when it shouldn't! Also remember this will affect the
distance you can have it from the line you are following.

So how about R2? just set R2 to about 4K.

The chip setup is simple too... ground pins 1, 10 and 19, put 5V onto pin 20. Now choose
a pin to input your signal to, if you look at the 74AC240 datasheet on page 1, you will see
a connection diagram, any pin with an I is an input, follow it across to find its output.
Pins 1 and 19 are the enable pins, which we have grounded to permanently enable the
inputs on both side of the chip, this leaves you free to use any of the input pins. For
example (in case I haven't spelt it out enough already)... input your signal at pin 4 and
take the ouput from pin 16.

The output signal could be used to directly drive your motor... just connect one side of
the motor to the ouput, and the other side to ground. If you do this for two motors (2 sets
of line detectors will require two sets of emitters and detectors, but only one 74AC240
chip), then you have a basic line follower already! The left detector should be used to
drive the right motor and vice versa
The behaviour of this robot as it stands will be too turn a motor on IF a line is present, if
both detectors are over the line then it will drive straight, if the left detector goes of the
line, it will turn off the right motor causing the robot to turn back onto the line, if the
right detector goes off the line then it will turn off the left motor and again go back onto
the line. If both detectors come off the line (end of line) then the robot will stop
altogether, perfect!