Installing DC Motor

This week we do installed 2 DC motor at back of the based and attach with the wheels. Motor also been tested. There is no major issue occured. Below is the motor specification :

•DC12V
•Output Power: 1.1 Watt
•Rated Speed: 185RPM
•Rated Current: 410mA
•Rated Torque: 78.4mN

Finalizing part component

DC Motor
Mechanical Assembly / Robot body and frame
Sealed Battery
Motor Driver
Water Pump
IR Sharp Sensor
Motor Wheel
Mainboard controller
Flame Sensor
Relay Mainboard
Screw Mainboard
LCD display
Castor wheel
DC Motor Bracket
IR Sensor Bracket
PCB Stand
DC Jack Converter
Rainbow cable
M-F Jumper
F-F Jumper

Auto CAD design

Attached picture below is mechanical design of fire fighting robot. The robot using 2 wheel and 1 castor wheel on the front to make the movement smooth and reduce the used of motor. Thick acrylic used as robot based in term of stabilisation and thin acrylic used at body to cover Electronic parts. Water container is put at the back of the based. Basically this is only prototype robot.

Presentation day (week 12)

Alhamdulillah, the slide finished according to plan. Mr Suhairi and Madam Lily will be my assessor on that day. Day before presentation, i already seen both  assessor to get their requirements. Basically, the presentation achieved my goals to present all the research that we have done so far. I have explain the basic component on the robot, the layout of the track, and give the assessor idea about how the robot is going to look like by showing her the prototype design. But the are some argument on the extinguisher. I decided to use fan as extinguisher but Mr Suhairi claim that it's not suitable. So I'll note on that and take action. Overall the assessor satisfy with all the explanation except the sensor part. The assessor did ask me the limitation of the IR Sensor. I guess I have to research and study more on that. I hope I get the best marks from the assessor and more guidance from Mr Syamsul on the next level in building this Final Year project. Work planing chart attach as below:

 FYP Semester 1/2012

Work planing chart

Blue - Actual

Red - Planned

Working on slide presentation ( week 11 )

From the report on weekly 12th, I have basically done with the Flow Chart and the Block Diagram where I  can know what is the exactly function of the parts.I also added the comprising 3 type of motor and this is my finding;

• Servo Motor (SELECTED)  - Least expensive non-surplus source for gear motors. Can be used for precise angular control, or for continuous rotation.
•  Stepper Motor  - Consumes high current. Needs special driving circuit to provide stepping rotation. Cannot support heavy structure due to low torque.
• Continuous DC motor  - Requires gear reduction to provide torques needed for most robotic applications. Poor standards in sizing and mounting arrangements.

 I'm also doing  a comparison between Microcontrollers between PIC (Peripheral Interface Controller), Atmel AVR (8-bit microcotroller), and Intel 8051 (8-bit microcontroller). Function of this Sensor is to detect the obstacles while the robot is on the run.Below is the result of the comparison.

• IR sensor (Infra-Red) - Low power requirements with simple circuitry. There is no special or proprietary hardware is required, can be incorporated into the most integrated product
• Ultrasonic Sensor - The readings from an ultrasonic sensor can be distorted by Density, Consistency, Material

• Triangular-Based Sensor - High input is required. The sensing is very   sensitive and a lots of noise. The sensor is very sensitive and must always      kept clean otherwise it effect the accuracy of sensing. The operating     temperature is very limited and required external cooling system.

I have decided to choose  the IR Sensor because itt is simple and easy to operate. It is also  the most suitable for this project.  

10th week - Meeting and Discussion

For this week, I concentrating to get the slides to be done for week 12, i had further discussion more about the element to be in the slides. So Mr Syamsul told me, the most important things in the presentation is the Block Diagram and Flow Chart of the hardware. And to add some comparison to the parts and component that i choose.

To study more on the robot for the presentation, i have asked from my senior last semester on the robotic project. So, i able study and explain more details on the system for the Fire Fighting robot project. I'm very thankful to Mr Syamsul providing me such a useful exposure.

9th week - Components survey

In bustling to get the presentation slides in progress, i heard rumors that in Jalan Pasar the component sells in cheap price so i steal some time to survey the component in Jalan Pasar in order to test the parts that we going to use. Basically, the main parts that we survey such as Microcontroller (PIC), Servo Motor, IR sensor and IRPD infra red proximity detector.

As shown below, price of the components :

NO	ITEM	UNIT	PRICE (RM)
1	Microcontroller (PIC 16F877A)	1	RM 50
2	Servo Motor	2	RM200
3	IR infrared sensor	1	RM70
4	IRPD infrared proximity detector	1	RM90

TOTAL : RM 410

This is the basic parts and component that we going to use at the time being. As for my budget is below RM500 in building the circuitry not including the cost for the structure. There will be some added component and parts in the future testing.