Household Utility Robot

Abstract

Dozens of smart tools and devices have been produced to make ease of the tasks which cannot be done otherwise. The matter is more crucial when children, elderly persons or differently able persons are faced with such situations. Our hypothesis is that the above issue can be addressed to a great extent by developing a small-scale robot with vertical and horizontal movements. The robot is essentially portable, about 8 inches, and can be connected to a rod to gain extended length up to the desired limit. The robot head consists of an IR camera which undergoes two degrees of freedom, generally horizontal and vertical. The vertical and horizontal displacements of the head of the robot are measured by rotation of two stepper motors. The displacements of the robot head are confined to endpoints of the two sliding guides through the signals coming from four IR sensors in those ends. The robot is able to scan its proximity, locate any object in the region, and display the information on a portable device such as a laptop, a smartphone or a tablet. The robot has been implemented by 16F877A microcontroller and shown promising results in accurate vertical and horizontal movements. This robot can be introduced as a smart device for a household toolbox.