Hi everyone,
First I’m sorry that I posted this request for my first post.
But the stress of doing a dissertation is as such.
I’m planning to build an autonomous lawnmower for my final year dissertation and I’ll be using PIC 16F877A. The programming language that will be used is mikrobasic.
Has anyone ever done this project before?
I’ll be needing all your precious help guys (technical reports will be more that welcome)?
Can you please help make a list of components (sensors, motors,motor drivers etc…compatible with PIC 16F877A)?I am planning to build the robot like robomow(friendly robotics), that is, with the perimeter wire and simply a “Go” button ( and the rest of the mechanism is like meta described). The weight of the robot should be no more than 10 kg.
Any one got an idea how to build the perimeter wire circuit and make the microcontroller sense it when the robot approaches the wire?
Does anyone has idea how Friendly Robotics (Robomow) system works?
I need your precious help
Thanks a lot for your response
Thanks.
Cameleon do you have a schematic of the perimeter wire please?
Doing a bit of Googling, you will find many similar projects.
To determine the motor requirements, you can use some tools in our Learning Center such as the Drive Motor Sizing Tool. You can then use these values to select a motor then select the motor controller.
Beyond that, robot mowers like the Robomow have a blade motor, bumpsensors and security devices (tilt sensors, Buried Wire Fence).
In order to make your own buried wire fence, search Google for “Buried Wire Fence” and you will find alot of information. Altrernatively, you could hack a system used for pet control.
You should not have any problem interfacing everything to a PIC. Make sure you work on each subsystem independently and bring it all together for a complete system.
I have experimented with perimeter wired in the past. Think of it as two separate devices: the pulse generator and the detector. The pulse generator sends the current in the wire. You have to send your pulse at a specific frequency, let’s say 50 KHz. You can do it with a small 555 timer or a microcontroller. The detector is a simple coil attached to the robot. It acts as an antenna and will resonate when the robot pass over the wire perimeter. Your embedded intelligence has to deal with this.
The rest of the system includes the mobile platform itself, the charging station and communication between the station and the robot. You have to think about security aspects and also frequency interference. You do not want to interfere with all the garage doors in the neighborhood:cool:
Unfortunately, I do not have access to the documentation anymore. 
