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Implementation of Autonomous Line Following

Robot
B.M Hasanuzzaman

Electronic and Computer Engineering

North South University
Dhaka, 1229, Bangladesh
bm.hasanuzzaman@northsouth.edu

Abstract - Technology has reached so far.
Machine vision-based robot navigation
technology has become the topics for research
nowadays. Still traditional line following robot
plays a vital role because of its simple design and
low cost. This paper presents the algorithm, path
planning and growth of a line following robot. A
line following robot is an independent robot that
follows a black line (or a white or colored surface).
This robot must detect the line and follow it. It
does actually follow a feedback system; first
sensor read the data and send it to
microcontroller and microcontroller process the
data and give command to the motor driver to run
motors. This robot is simple but have abilities to
perform many important tasks of our daily life.
I. INTRODUCTION
Robots are electromechanical machines having
ability to perform tasks or actions on some given
electronic programming. Line following robots are
mobile robots having ability to follow a line very
accurately having an onboard hardwired control
circuit. A machine can perform many things,
sometimes it is automatic and sometimes it is
repetitive. In order to make an accurate mobile
robot which can follow a robot we need to know
about the steering mechanism and motor driver
functions [2]. For designing a robot and to get a
better performance, proper stability analysis is
required. The basic operation of any line following
robot mainly follows three basic functions steering,
IR sensor reading and capturing line position. The
line sensing operation needs an algorithm which has
to be high resolution and high robustness [3]. Two

Index Terms - Arduino, Autonomous, embedded motors are used to get steering direction, sometimes

system, threshold, wheeled mobile robot, LDR, four motors can be used. Practical applications of a
line follower include automated cars running on
LED.
roads with embedded magnets; guidance system for
industrial moving on shop floor etc [4][5][6].


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II. BLOCK DIAGRAM
The robot uses two IR sensors. In an IR sensor there
is one LED and one photoelectric diode. The output
of this sensor is analog signal which depends on the
amount of reflected light. Using this analog signal
data, we use some condition and, in those condition,
we write the command for motors. Motor driver
process the command and runs the motors. Let’s see
a block diagram for line following robot.
Fig.1 Block diagram of line follower robot.
III. SENSORS
2
Infra-Red (IR) Sensors has LED and Photoelectric
diode. It actually it uses reflection method. For any
line following we need at least two IR sensors. As
light of the LED hits the surface, some portion of it
is absorbed and rest of the energy is reflected. As
rule of physics black surface will absorb more light
than a white surface, and a shiny smooth white
surface will reflect more energy than a rough
surface. The intensity of the reflected light will be
sensed by the receiver.
Fig.2 Sensor arrangement
For this robot IR sensor will follow above method
and using those method this robot will follow the
black line.
IV. ALGORITHM
Every hardware needs a software to run and a
software is built with several algorithm. As we
discussed before there are two IR sensors. One is
left sensor and another is right sensor. Those
sensors have ability to give input voltage to the
Arduino. Using those analog signal data, we
established some condition. We can have four
movement based on those condition.
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two NOT Gates and three AND gates. It does

understand the sensor’s analog output and produces
digital information of the robot’s current position.
This robot gets 4 basic instructions from this circuit
i.e. when to go forward or stop, when to turn in
which direction (right or left).

Table.1 different condition for movement

Fig.5 Logic Circuit

VI. MOTOR DRIVER

Fig.3 Bird view of robot We used L293d motor driver in this project. This
motor driver can control two motor at a time, using
this two-motor robot can perform all those required
movements. It has 16 digital pins. In those pins it
has 4 input pin and 4 output pins. One motor
requires two output pins. By controlling voltage of
the output pin, it changes the direction of the motor.
It has some other pins like VCC, GND. For better
understanding we can see the diagram below.

Fig.4 Actual photo of the robot

V. LOGIC CIRCUIT
Logic circuit helps us to understand the whole
function of any hardware. Here logic circuit works
as brain of the line following robot. This circuit has Fig.6 L293d motor driver
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VII.DRIVING AND STEERING MECHANISM Which will lead us to project failure. We should
also be careful about the height of the IR sensors.
We invented the steering mechanism a long time
There is a potentiometer on the IR sensor, which
ago. We used the same steering mechanism as cars.
helps us to fix the threshold voltage of the IR
But unlike cars here we have only two DC Gear
sensor. Once it is fixed, it must not be changed.
Motors. In front we have a free running wheel,
which is fixed. Those two DC motors is responsible
for movement of the robot. If both motors start to
spin anticlockwise at the same time and same speed
the it will go forward and if it spins clockwise then
the robot will go back. Then if left motor speed is
greater than right motor then it will go right. In the
other hand if left motor speed is less than right
motor then it will go left.
Fig.8 Sensor Placement

IX. TURNING ANGLE

Fig.7 Motor arrangement for driving
For a clear performance we should also focus on the
angle of the path. Turning angle of the path depends
on the robot hardware. According to the speed of
the motor and braking system we should place the
angle of the path. Larger turning angle and efficient
motor braking mechanism are required for greater
speed. The minimum turning angle should be 110
degree. Less than 110-degree line can lead the robot
missing the line.

VIII. LINE WIDTH AND COLOR

The line width and color are major factors here. For
an efficient line following robot, we need to be
sincere about these facts. We first measure the line
width and then we place IR sensors according to the
width. The line should not be less than minimum
Fig.9 Line showing the minimum turning angle
line width. If the line color is not carefully tuned
then the robot will be unable to detect the line.
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 Lack of speed control makes the robot

unstable at times.
 Choice of line is made in the hardware
abstraction and cannot be changed by
software.

XI. PLATFORM AND TECHNOLOGY

An LFR robot can be made using very simple

technology. There are two parts of this project,
hardware and software. Actually, it an embedded
system, once we upload the software the robot will
follow the algorithm of the code. It has no outer
control. We used an Arduino UNO for run the code,
which will take the analog signal data and will
process the data for digital output. It has limited
Functions and features. Like it only follows a line
by using the functions of IR sensors and motor
driver. We can think of some future development

Fig.10 Snapshots of the Line Follower Robot where this robot can solve a maze using better
algorithm.

X. ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

A line follower robot has many advantages, we use

it in many sectors of daily life. We can see the use
of LFR in medical sector, security sector and
mainly in military sector. Despite of many
advantages LFR has some restriction or
disadvantages. The disadvantages are:
 LFR can only move on a fixed track or path
 It requires Power Supply
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Fig.11 Arduino Uno

XII.CONCLUSION
The idea of the robot which has been discussed in
this paper shows that instructions from sensors and
motor driver helps us to achieve our targeted
movement of the robot. It uses very simple
algorithm, which has only four condition and very
few declared variables. We used microcontroller
which made the process easy for taking analog
signal data and processed into digitalWrite. Further
modification of this robot will need additional
sensors like sonar, PIR, Ultrasonic sensors [7] to
avoid obstacle or detect human.

REFERENCES

[I] Pakdaman. M.; Sanaatiyan. M.M. (2009), "Design and

Implementationof Line Follower Robot," Computer and
Electrical Engineering, 2009.ICCEE '09. Second International
Conference on , vol.2, no., pp.585-590,28-30 Dec. 2009.

[2]Priyank Patil (2010), "AVR Line Following Robot,"

Department of Infonnation Technology K. 1. Somaiya College
of Engineering Mumbai, India. Retrieved Mar 5, 2010.
[3]Nor Maniha Abdul Ghani, Faradila Naim, Tan Piow Yon,
'Two Wheels Balancing Robot with Line Following
Capability'.

[4] J. Kramer and M. Scheutz, "Development environments

for autonomous mobile robots: A survey," Autonomous
Robots, vol. 22.
[5]Prashant Agrawal, Krishna, Nand Gupta, 'Line Follower
Robot'. [6]Designing and Building a Line Following Robot
Richard I. Vannoy 11, M.S.I.I., B.S.E.E.I.H.

7] M.1.ChantJer, 'Detection and tracking of returns in sector-

scan sonar image sequences'.