1. Abstract

        A robot has been designed and built that autonomously solves unknown mazes without any external aid. The project can be applied to larger scale autonomous vehicles to travel from one location to another without the need for any external aid.

      The robot uses a set of Infrared (IR) sensors to study surrounding environment for obstacle avoidance and navigational purposes. The robot also uses quadrature wheel encoders as part of a closed-loop control system to calculate and control speed, distance traveled, and direction of travel.

   The robot performs all data processing and calculation using dsPIC33EP512MC806 digital signal controller (DSC) made by Microchip. The developed software algorithm uses the processed data from the IR sensors and quadrature wheel encoders.

      In addition, the robot exemplifies an efficient power management platform. The minimum power efficiency of the robot is > 85%.

      The robot was tested on a configurable 3-by-6 grid maze. Each grid is 6”x6”. The maze was made of hardboard with walls that can be rearranged to test the robot under different maze configurations.