1. Project Idea
2. Project Aim
3. Prerequisite
4. Requirements
5. Building The Rover
6. Circuit Diagram
7. Data Transmission
8. Setting up the server
9. Obstacle Avoidance Logic
10. Arduino Code
11- Final Result

Published November 9, 2020 © GPL3+

Voice Controlled Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Car using mobile

To remotely control a rover by giving voice commands to it from a mobile web-page and to detect an obstacle and stop automatically.

ExpertFull instructions provided8,592

Voice Controlled Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Car using mobile

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Arduino UNO

SparkFun Dual H-Bridge motor drivers L298

HC-05 Bluetooth Module

Ultrasonic Sensor - HC-SR04 (Generic)

Jumper wires (generic)

9V battery (generic)

Story

1. Project Idea

I have previously made a web-page controlled rover using Node.js, you can check it out here. So this time with some upgrade, I decided to make a “voice-controlled, obstacle avoidance rover”.

2. Project Aim

To remotely control a rover by giving voice commands to it from a mobile web-page and to detect and stop automatically as soon as it faces any obstacle.

3. Prerequisite

You need to have some basic knowledge of Node, socket programming, and L298 Motor Driver working.

4. Requirements

1 Arduino Uno

1 L298 Motor Driver

HC-05 Bluetooth Module

HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor

Jumper Wires

2 Battery – 9 volts each

2 gear Motors (6-9 volts)

2 compatible wheels

Chassis

Computer with Node.js installed for our server.

5. Building The Rover

To build this rover you need to purchase a “2 wheel chassis kit” which is easily available online and comes with all assembling units.

Our Arduino Uno and L298 Motor Driver are embedded on top of our Chassis, both of which are powered by two 9 volts battery separately.

Arduino Uno in turn will power the HC-05 Bluetooth module which will communicate with our server. And L298 Motor driver, in turn, will power the HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor with its 5V output pin.

6. Circuit Diagram

As shown above the circuit diagram, the L298 motor driver is powered by a 9V Battery, the two motor control outputs are connected to Motor A and Motor B and as the motor has no polarity you can connect any terminal to it, but make sure that both motors rotate in the same direction.

L298 will also power our HC-SR04 Ultrasonic module with its 5V output pin as shown in the above image. Do not remove the 5V regulator jumper.

Note: if you power L298 with more than 12 volts, the onboard 5V voltage regulator will be damaged.

Arduino Uno is also powered by a 9V battery with its positive terminal connected to the Vin pin of Arduino and the negative terminal to the common ground. Arduino in-turn will power the Bluetooth module, so connect the Vcc pin of HC-05 to 5V of Arduino and GND to ground.

For serial communication between HC-05 and Arduino, connect the TXD pin of HC-05 to the RX pin of Arduino and RXD pin of HC-05 to the TX pin of Arduino.

Now to control the L298 module you can connect the EN1 and EN2 pin with any PWM pin of the Arduino. And then connect L298’s Input pin -1, 2, 3, 4 with any digital pin of Arduino.

7. Data Transmission

As shown above, is a diagram showing the transmission of data.

The user will open the web-page served by the node server. Both Mobile and Node-server should be connected to the same internet network. The URL would be the IP address with port number used, for e.g- “192.XXX.XXX.129:8080”.

The user gives voice commands to the web-page, after recognizing it the web-page will send the required data to the Node server using socket connection.

The Node server will pass on the data to the HC-05 Bluetooth module, as both are paired.

The HC-05 will transmit data to Arduino UNO using serial communication.

The Arduino UNO in turn will control the L298 module

8. Setting up the server

For our server, we need to install Node.js. Install any stable version of node, mine is 11.15 version. We need to install the following packages-

node-gyp

express

node-bluetooth

socket.io

Note – Installation of “node-gyp” might be tricky as it does not support some latest version of Node, so better install version 11.15 of Node.

Now, We need to listen to events from a web page, and to host that webpage we will need a server. So, create a server using a package like “express.js” which will make our job much easier.

After the server setup, we need to design a webpage from which we will give voice commands. Here I have used the package “ejs” to render the webpage. But giving voice commands is not enough, we also need to recognize the speech in order to control our rover. So for speech recognition, we will use theWeb Speech API, which will give text as an output for whatever we speak.

Here is my web page –

NOTE – Speech recognition will not work for non-secure web pages, so will not work for URL containing your IP-address.To make it work you need to set your URL as secure in your Chrome browser, so just visit this link “chrome://flags/#unsafely-treat-insecure-origin-as-secure” in your chrome browser and add your URL.

Now, as soon as we speak something and if it’s an eligible command, we will emit a socket-message with the required data to the Node server using the package “socket.io”.

After receiving a message from the webpage the Node server will pass on the data to the HC-05 Bluetooth module, and for that, we will use the “node-bluetooth” package.

9. Obstacle Avoidance Logic

The HC-SR04 Ultrasonic Sensor can detect an obstacle when placed in front of it. So we need to calculate the distance between the obstacle and the rover using the distance-speed-time equation, find the code implementation attached, or refer to this blog for more information.

After getting the distance we will set a limit, crossing which will stop the rover. For example, in this project, I have set a limit of 17cm, which means as soon as the distance between the obstacle and the rover goes below 17 cm the Rover will stop automatically.

10. Arduino Code

As Bluetooth will communicate with Arduino-Uno using Serial Communication we will send some “string” as a command with an additional letter which will tell us to terminate and capture the string.

For example-: to move forward, Bluetooth will transmit “forwardT”, and in the Arduino end, as soon as we encounter the letter “T” we will know that serial communication is completed and the string captured is “forward”.

And with that incoming string command, we will configure the L298 driver to move forward, backward, left, right, alter the speed, etc.

Find the Arduino Code attached.

11- Final Result

Code

Noderover2 - Arduino Code

// This Code is for Accident avoidance rover

const int en1 = 9;
const int en2 = 3;
const int inp1 = 2;
const int inp2 = 4;
const int inp3 = 7;
const int inp4 = 8;
char charRead;
String inputString = "";

//For ultrasonic sensor
int trigPin = 10;
int echoPin = 11;
  
void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);

  pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);

  pinMode(en1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(en2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(inp1, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(inp2, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(inp3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(inp4, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  // put your main code here, to run repeatedly:

  // Calculating distance of obstacle from rover
  long duration, distance;
  digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
  delay(1);
  digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
  duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
  distance = (duration / 2) / 29.1;
  Serial.print(distance);
  Serial.println("CM");
  delay(10);

  if ((distance <= 17))
  {
    // To Stop
    digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
    digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
    digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
    digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
    if (Serial.available()) {
      charRead = Serial.read();
      if (charRead != 'T') {
        inputString += charRead;
      } else {
        if (inputString == "backward") {
          // To move backward
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, HIGH);
          delay(1500);
        }
        inputString = "";
      }
    }
  }
  else {
    if (Serial.available()) {
      charRead = Serial.read();
      if (charRead != 'T') {
        inputString += charRead;
      } else {
        if (inputString == "forward") {
          // To move Forward
          digitalWrite(inp1, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
        } 
        else if (inputString == "backward") {
          // To move backward
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, HIGH);
        }
        else if (inputString == "fleft") {
          // To move left
          digitalWrite(inp1, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
        } else if (inputString == "fright") {
          // To move right
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
        }
        else if (inputString == "bleft") {
          // To move back left
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, HIGH);
        }
        else if (inputString == "bright") {
          // To move back right
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, HIGH);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
        }
        else if (inputString == "break") {
          // To Stop
          analogWrite(en1, 50);
          analogWrite(en2, 50);
          delay(550);
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
          analogWrite(en1, 150);
          analogWrite(en2, 150);
        }
        else if (inputString == "maxspeed") {
          // Max speed
          analogWrite(en1, 250);
          analogWrite(en2, 250);
        }
        else if (inputString == "medspeed") {
          // Medium Speed
          analogWrite(en1, 180);
          analogWrite(en2, 180);
        }
        else if (inputString == "lowspeed") {
          // Low speed
          analogWrite(en1, 90);
          analogWrite(en2, 90);
        }
        else {
          // Stop
          digitalWrite(inp1, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp2, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp3, LOW);
          digitalWrite(inp4, LOW);
        }
        inputString = "";
      }
    }
  }
}

Credits

adityahazarika08

0 projects • 6 followers

Voice Controlled Obstacle Avoidance Robotic Car using mobile