Voice Controlled Robotic Car

Nan Sandar Thin, Ei Mon Mon Aung, Nan Myint Myint Htwe
Faculty of Computer System and Technologies, University of Computer Studies (Hpa-an)
Faculty of Computer System and Technologies, University of Computer Studies (Myeik)
Faculty of Computer System and Technologies, University of Computer Studies (Thaton)
Myanmar
kyawsandaaung@gmail.com, eimonmonaung86@gmail.com, htwelay08@gmail.com

Abstract This paper describes the implementation of a voice

controlled robotic car using Arduino. In this paper, the user  Arduino Uno board
gives voice commands after being installed Android application
into user’s phones. After that the phone will send commands to
 L293D motor driver module
the Arduino through Bluetooth. The Arduino will control car’s  Bluetooth module
movements depending on the receiving sounds. The robot  Connecting wire
moves respectively as the voice command’s procedures such as  Robot chassis with motors and wheel
forwards, backwards, left and right, and stop. The advantage
of using Voice Controlled Robotic Car is that it can be used for  Smartphone
various purposes such as reducing manual work.
A. Arduino Uno board
Keywords Voice commands, Android application, Bluetooth,
Arduino, Robotic Car

I. INTRODUCTION
Speech signals are the most important means of
communication in human beings. Almost every conversation
to interact is done by means of voice signals. Various speech
signals are converted into electrical from using a
microphone for a robot to understand the voice commands.
So the robot can be controlled by voice commands to
perform required actions.

The use of robots in the present day has moves from
industries to the normal day to life. The use of voice
commands to control a robot is much easier for domestic as
well as industrial users. It also helps in hands free navigation
and which makes it easier to enter into places which are
dangerous to human life like coal mines.
This paper proposes the use of an android mobile to
control a robot via voice commands. In this system, the first
term to be considered is Speech Recognition i.e., making the
system to understand human voice. Speech Recognition is a
technology where the system understands the words given
through speech. These voice commands will be issued at the
Android application on the user’s phone which is connected
to the robotic car using a Bluetooth Module. The goal of
Voice Controlled Robotic Car is to listen and act on the
commands received from the user. The training is required
to control the car for the robot understands the commands
issued. This is done by adding commands to the controller
through a code.
II. HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
Figure 1: Arduino Uno board
Arduino Uno is an open-source platform used for
building electronics projects. Arduino consist of both a
physical programmable circuit board (often referred to as a
microcontroller) and a piece of software, or IDE (Integrated
Development Environment) that runs on your computer,
used to write and upload computer code to the physical
board. The Arduino platform has become quite popular with
people just starting out with electronics, and for good reason.
The Arduino does not need a separate piece if hardware
(called a programmer) in order to load new code onto the
board – a USB cable can simply be used to load this code.
Additionally, the Arduino IDE uses a simplified version of
C++, marking it easier to learn to program. Finally, Arduino
provides a standard form factor that breaks out the functions
of the microcontroller into a more accessible package.
B. L293D motor driver module
 In Figure 4, the voice command is converted to text by
an application of the android phone and sends to the
Arduino. The Arduino with Bluetooth module receives this
voice commands and process to control the movements of
the car. Power supply is used to supply the need voltage for
Arduino. L293D motor driver is controlled the robot wheels
and moving direction of motor driver depending on the voice
commands.

The flowchart shown in Figure 5 is for the operation of

the system.

Figure 2: L293D Motor Driver shield for Car

Start
This motor driver expansion board is based on the
L293D chip which is designed to drive up to 4 bidirectional
Initially stop condition
DC motors with individual 8-bit speed selection. It can also
drive 2 stepper motors (unipolar or bipolar), single coil or
double coil, interleaved or micro-stepping. It contains 4 H-
Establish Bluetooth
bridges which provide up to 0.6 A per bridge (1.2 A peak) at connection
voltages from 4.5 V to 36 V. This shield has pull down
resistors to keep the motors disabled during power up. It also
features a 2-pin terminal block to ensure separate logic and
Connected No
motor external power supplies.
Yes
C. Bluetooth module
Give commands for robot
operations

Stop
Figure 3: Bluetooth module
Figure 5: Flowchart of the System
The Bluetooth module can be used for the replacement of
The first step of flowchart is the start of program and the
wired serial connections. It can simply establish a
robot is initially stopped when the voice command is no
connection between MCU and GPS, PC to the embedded
detected. And then, the establish Bluetooth module on the
systems. The popular Bluetooth uses the HC – 05module.
robot. If check whether the device is connected then it gives
These modems work as a serial (RX/TX) pipe. Any serial
the pre-defined commands to the user’s phone. The voice
stream from 9600 to 115200bps can be passed seamlessly.
commands configuration such as vocal command – forward
and data to send to Arduino –F, vocal command – Backward
III. SYSTEM OPERATIONS
and data to send to Arduino –B, vocal command – Right and
Bluetooth data to send to Arduino –R, vocal command – Left and data
Voice Android Module Arduino Power
command app (HC-05) UNO Supply to send to Arduino – L, vocal command – Stop and data to
send to Arduino – S. Microcontroller will take those vocal
commands. If failed to connect than the process is looped
next one.
DC DC
motor motor
M1 L293D IV. IMPLEMENTATION
M3
motor
driver A. Software Implementation
DC DC
motor The main brain of this paper is the Arduino, which is
motor
M2 M4 derived from C and C++ languages and the operating of the
Figure 4: Block diagram of the model
controller is 5V and the clock speed is 16MHz. Android {
speech-recognition application (voicecontrol.apk) used here left ( );
was developed using Arduino BlueControl App as shown in }
Figure 6. When the application is running in the smartphone, if ( bt = = ‘R’)
user’s voice commands are detected by the microphone {
present in the phone. Text is then sent to the robotic car via right ( );
Arduino Uno. The following program code is the operations }
to control the robot according to the voice commands. if ( bt = = ‘S’)
{
stop ( );
}
}
void forward ( )
{
motor1.run (FORWARD);
motor2.run (FORWARD);
motor3.run (FORWARD);
motor4.run (FORWARD);
}
void backward ( )
{
motor1.run (BACKWARD);
motor2.run (BACKWARD);
motor3.run (BACKWARD);
Figure 6: Screenshot of the home screen of Arduino BlueControl
motor4.run (BACKWARD);
App
#include <AFMotor.h> }
AF_DCMotor motor1 (1); void left ( )
AF_DCMotor motor2 (2); {
AF_DCMotor motor3 (3); motor1.run (FORWARD);
AF_DCMotor motor4 (4); motor2.run (FORWARD);
char bt = ‘S’; motor3.run (BACKWARD);
void setup( ) motor4.run (BACKWARD);
{ }
Serial.begin(9600); void right ( )
motor1.setSpeed (255); {
motor2.setSpeed (255); motor1.run (BACKWARD);
motor3.setSpeed (255); motor2.run (BACKWARD);
motor4.setSpeed (255); motor3.run (FORWARD);
Stop( ); motor4.run (FORWARD);
} }
void loop( ) void stop ( )
{ {
bt = Serial.read( ); motor1.run (RELEASE);
if ( bt = = ‘F’) motor2.run (RELEASE);
{ motor3.run (RELEASE);
forward ( ); motor4.run (RELEASE);
} }
if ( bt = = ‘B’) B. Hardware Implementation
{
backward ( ); Arduino Uno is the Microchip ATmega328
} microcontroller based development board with 6 analog I/O
if ( bt = = ‘L’) pins and 14 digital I/O pins. The MCU can operate at a clock
frequency of 16MHz. In this paper, pins 0 and 1 of Arduino
are used for serial communication with HC-05 Bluetooth
module. The digital and analog pin of Arduino Uno is
connected with L293D shield except digital pin 2 and pin13.
Text received via Bluetooth is forwarded to Arduino Uno
board using UART serial communication protocol. Arduino
program voice control checks the text received and, if it is a
matching string, Arduino controls the movements of the
robot accordingly. Bluetooth Module is like a serial
communication port so serial communication code will work
on Bluetooth Module. Power supply is used to supply the
need voltage for Arduino. Motor driver is controlled the
robot classic wheels and moving direction of motor driver
depending on the detection of voice commands.
[4] Aniket R. Yeole, Sapana M. Bramhankar, Monali D. Wani,
"Smart Phone Controlled Robot Using ATMEGA328
Microcontroller" ,ISO 3297: 2007 Pg:352-356.
[5] A paper on Arduino Based Voice Controlled Robot , K.
Kannan , PG Scholar, Embedded System Technology, SRM
University, Tamilnadu , India , Dr. J. Selvakumar , AP (S.G),
ECE Department, SRM University, Tamilnadu, India.
[6] Kishan Raj KC, “CONTROLLING A ROBOT USING
ANDROID INTERFACE AND VOICE” Pg:1-36
[7] Arduino[online].Available:
https://create.arduino.cc/projecthub

A
M1 L293D Shield M3 A
B Motor Driver B
A M2
B M4 A
B
+M GND
6 - 9V

Bluetooth
Power band
vcc

Battery 5V
TX-> 1
RX<- 0

Arduino UNO

5V GND

Figure 7: Circuit diagram of voice control car

V. CONCLUSION
This paper completely reforms the robotic vehicle and
gives it a new dimension. It can easily recognize the voice
commands and runs smoothly. The robot is useful in places
where humans difficult to reach but human voice reaches
such as in a small pipeline, in fire-situations, and in highly
toxic areas. The robot can be used as a toy.

REFERENCES
[1] R. M. Narayana ,Harsha Chapala , "Voice Control Robot
using Android Application ",Volume :4 ,ISSN: 2277 5668
Pg:332-337
[2] K. Kannan , Dr. J. Selvakumar ,"Arduino Based Voice
Controlled Robot ",Volume :02 issue :01 ,Mar-2015 ISSN:
2395-0072
[3] Prof.Bhuvaneshwari Jolad, Mohnish Arora, Rohab Ganu,
Chetab Bhatia, “Voice Controlled Robotic Vehicle”, Volume :
04 Issue: 06| June -2017, ISSN: 2395-0072.