PID based design and development of a mobile robot using microcontroller

Human labor work has been increasingly being replaced by robots to do works for decades, especially those that are tedious and risky. Moreover, works done by robotics have less error prone and higher efficiency. This paper presents a design and develops microcontroller based mobile robot (MR). The robot is based on a microcontroller, acting as the brain, which contain a series of programs that interpret its surrounding through input data from the sensors and maneuver through the limited data obtained while avoiding obstacle. The prototype was able to differentiate surrounding and maneuver to desired location smoothly according to predefined path while simultaneously sensing for obstacle to avoid. The Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) based program on the microcontroller was critical because it needs to handle the sensitive sensors feedback and sent correct command to respond to the surrounding while at the same time having the correct arrangement and format. The developed MR can be controlled autonomously, following the path by varying the current fed to the motor through error correction, towards desired location while simultaneously sensing for obstacle as far as 400 cm ahead. Through decision making the speed of the MR will adjust itself and will put stop moving when the obstacle was 5 cm ahead. Based on the experiment the advantage and disadvantage of the current development were realized for further development.