International Journal of Computer Applications (0975 – 8887) Volume 123 – No.1, August 2015 21 A Prototype Mobile Robot for Intelligent Energy Harvesting in Emergent Situation Lutfun Nahar Nipa Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh Md. Rokunuzzaman Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh ABSTRACT This paper describes a prototype mobile robot which will harvest energy when its own power reserve is diminishing while working. The need of power restoration of the mobile robot drives it automatically by auto plugging-in with the help of a microcontroller interfaced with a motor control circuit. For the development of the system a prototype mobile robot is made by designing of its various parts. The mobile robot firstly follows a line like a line following robot. With the movement of the robot, the battery charge will be decreased. When the charge decreases to less than 50%, the mobile robot then follow the second line to recharge itself by auto plugging into the charging station. After getting fully recharged, the mobile robot again switched to follow the first line. A control circuit is designed to control the line following movement of the mobile robot. An algorithm is also developed circuit consists of infrared sensor, motor driver circuit with power supply, transmitter circuit, receiver circuit and infrared LED (IR-LED). DC motor is used as an actuator to control the wheel of the mobile robot. An infrared sensor is used to generate high and low frequency in the transmission circuit. High frequency is generated when capacitor’s capacity is low and low frequency is generated when capacitor’s capacity is high. The receiver circuit receives the high and low frequency and sends signal to the program that controls the DC motor according to the analysis result. Thus the DC motor drives the wheel to control the movement of the mobile robot. The overall success rate of the prototype mobile robot is 83.33% including line following and recharging. General Terms This project is worked with forward sensing control system. Forward sensing control uses sensors to step forward with other automatic guided vehicle in the area. There are many systems available for the development of this type of auto plug in system such as Laser Target Navigation , Steering control , Vision-Guidance , Forward sensing control system , Path select mode. Keywords Intelligent Energy Harvesting, Auto-recharging, Emergent Situation 1. INTRODUCTION Power restoration of a mobile robot can be described as that mobile robot generally run by battery and in running process the battery charge decreased. So it is mandatory to supply electrical power to run the operation of robot in absence of power or scarcity of power. So in our project we have tried to develop a robot which will be able to seek power from electrical energy source by auto plug in otherwise it seeks energy by solar panel from solar source of energy. To develop the system robot technology, sensor, micro controller, solar panel etc. were used. The robot will automatically guide itself around a room and through the use of an infrared sensor move towards a potential wall socket. When it reaches the socket, it will plug itself in to recharge. If we cannot get electrical energy by auto plugging in there should be a simple arrangement of solar panel controlled by the programmable micro controller that can collect energy directly from the sun. Otherwise if both operations failed then the robot will go to sleep mode or auto shut down occurs for power saving. There are many systems available for the development of this type of auto plug in system are following:- i. Laser Target Navigation ii. Steering control iii. Vision-Guidance iv. Forward sensing control system v. Path select mode In this project we work with forward sensing control system. Forward sensing control uses sensors to step forward with other automatic guided vehicle in the area. In running the battery charge will decrease of the vehicle. To avoid manual charging in this project with the help of sensor to detect the charge of the battery and according to the charge of the battery the vehicle will automatically seek for electrical source to get electrical energy. After having electrical energy at desired level the vehicle will run for its working path. The research of intelligent energy harvesting is almost new and very few literatures are available in the world. Intel developed a mobile robot which has the end effector (Power plug) containing an integrated electric field (E-Field) sensing electronics. The plug has antennas (electrodes) that sense the 60Hz electric fields emanating from a powered outlet in order to facilitate highly-accurate plug-outlet localization and subsequent plugging-in [1]. Willow Garage invented PR-2 robots back in June 2009, is to employ visual techniques to facilitate plug-outlet localization. Plugging in was part of their wildly successful Milestone 2, where the PR-2 autonomously plugged itself into 9 different office outlets [2]. While early versions relied on a visual fiducially on the plug (check board pattern) and worked only on orange outlets. John Hopkins invented a self-plugging robot in 1960. That robot controlled by dozens of transistors, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab's "Beast" wandered white hallways, centering by sonar, until its batteries ran low. Then it would seek black wall outlets with special photocell optics, and plug itself in by feel with its special recharging arm. After feeding,