SAILING SYSTEM BASED IN ULTRASOUND AND INFRARED APPLIED TO

A MOBILE ROBOT

Trinidad-García G.1, Saldaña-González G.2, Larios-Gómez M.3, López Marin N.4, Villafuerte Herrera F.5
Facultad de Ciencias de la Computación1,3,4,5
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla
Carrera de Electricidad y Electrónica industrial2
Universidad Tecnológica de Puebla
Puebla, México
tgarcia@solarium.cs.buap.mx1, griselda.saldana@utpuebla.edu.mx2,
mlarios@cs.buap.mx1, nlopez@cs.buap.mx1

Abstract—This paper presents a proposal of a sailing control
based on infrared and ultrasound sensors applied to robotics.
The system’s control is based on the “EyeBot” board. The
sensing subsystems for infrared and ultrasound transducers
are designed to be used in the construction of experimental
robots of general purpose. The actuators used are DC motors
and servomotors. In order to verify the operation of the
systems, a mobile robot that evades obstacles and allows
knowing the distance from such obstacle to the robot was built.
The system configuration consists of two ultrasound
transducers placed in the front and back of the mobile, and the
infrared ones placed on the sides. This configuration gives
autonomy to the robot, allowing the obstacles’ evasion and
avoiding collisions with objects around to generate possible
escape routes. It is important to highlight that the systems were
built in a modular way, which allows different configurations
according to the user needs. As future work, modules for light
intensity and sound detection will be added in order to provide
more flexibility to the system.
Keywords: ultrasouond sensor; sailing system; EyeBot system
processing for the signals generated by the transducers. The
“EyeBot” architecture provides enough resources for the
development of the software needed to treat the sensors
signals and to carry out the appropriate action for the robot.
In this work a prototype for an electronic system and the
software development that allows the robot to detect
obstacles in a range from 5 cm to 3 meters as maximum in
the front and back part is presented. In both sides the infrared
sensors with a detection range of some centimeters are
placed. This allows the robot to perceive its environment.
The objective is to avoid an obstacle or to trace a possible
escape route.
The document is organized as follow, in section two the
system description is presented, section three describes the
system implementation highlighting the hardware and
software counterpart of the execution. Section four shows the
system operation and the experimental results and some test
performed to the system are reported in section 5. Finally
section 6 presents the conclusion and future work.

I. INTRODUCTION II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTCION

An area with one of the major technological An oscillator circuit is in charge of providing a 5 volts
developments is robotics [1]. Advances in this field have signal with a frequency of 50 KHz to the SRF05 sensor,
allowed the design of robots that have made easier certain which is polarized with 5 volts dc. The SRF05 output is a 5
human activities, currently this kind of activities wouldn’t be volts signal with a variable period that depends on the
carrying out without the help of a robot. A robot perceives distance from the robot to the obstacle; this signal is treated
signals from his surrounding environment using transducers, to obtain a voltage value that is proportional to the distance
these elements can register pressure, temperature, humidity, to the object location. In Figure 1 it is shown the sensor and
light intensity, among others, in general some kind of its emission pattern.
radiation or vibration. Using these elements, a robot can
interact with his environment. The use of these transducers,
an appropriate electronic design and software development
give the robot certain level of autonomy [2, 3]. The proposed
control system is based on the technology of “EyeBot” [4]
due to it is equipped with elements that allow the
implementation of a robotic system such as infrared sensors,
encoders, dc motors, servomotors and serial port, among
others; furthermore “Eyebot” programming can be done in
high level and functional libraries oriented to robotics are a) b)
included. “Eyebot” is in charge of providing the control and Figure 1. a) SRF05 Sensor, b) Emission Pattern

978-1-4244-5353-5/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 286

 In Figure 2 a timing diagram for the SRF05 output signal
is presented.
Figure 2. Timminga diagramm for the SRF05
Figure 3 shows the scenario where this system is applied
when an object is inside the emission pattern.
Objects
Figure 3. Objects Localiztion
III. SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
In order to conditioning the input signal it is necessary to
design the circuits for the oscillator, the converter from
frequency to voltage, and the analog to digital converter to
interact with the “EyeBot”. For the software, the input,
output and control routines have been developed.
The hardware design was planned as a modular system
considering all the printed circuits, the coupling of stages,
and the electrical signal conditioning [5-7].
The software was developed considering that the robot
includes two ultrasound transducers [8, 9], one in the frontal
part and another one in the back part of the robot.
Furthermore, the robot includes two infrared transducers, one
placed on the right side and the other on the left one. The
robot has been provided with two servomotors that control
the course of the mobile.
The software was developed using C language from the
“EyeBot” and the obtained results are adapted to the system
requirements. A procedure for display the distance obtained
by the “EyeBot”, measured in meters has been developed.
Once frequency measured by the SRF05 is taken, the
conversion of this frequency to the equivalent distance is
programmed using a clock that counts the bits sent in a
period.
In order to take the distance between the mobile robot
and the obstacle a range is used. If the distance is less than
978-1-4244-5353-5/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
20 cm several conditions are considered to calculate the
distance. In this way it is possible to elude the obstacles and
measure distance between objects and the mobile.
The algorithm used to determine the movements that
robot must perform when an obstacle is found can be
observed in Figure 4.
Figure 4. Algorithm that obtains the distance between the obstacles and
the mobile
The measurements from the sensors are introduced into
the program and compared to a certain threshold.
From these measurements, a decision is made based in a
random function who decides which direction must be taken.
After verifying that no obstacles exist in more than 20 cm
around, the controlling signals are sent to the system
actuators.
IV. SYSTEM OPERATION
The voltage signal of 5 V in amplitude and variable
period passes through one of the system block and in the
output there is a linear voltage signal within a range of 0.02
and 5 volts. This voltage is converted to its correspondent
digital equivalent. This signal is interpreted as the distance to
the object.
This prototype is intended to provide to the robot with
the measured distance from where a certain obstacle is found
in order to determine the actions that allow him to evade or
to take such an object, depending on the desired task in the
environment in which the robot is immersed. Figure 5 shows
the block diagram of the general system.
287
 Circuit Sensor Characteristics
Oscilador
20
Pulse width (ms)
15
SRF05 F-V
Device Converter 10 Series1

Object LCD
DAC PIC 0
d=xx cm
0 1 2 3
Distance (mts)
Figure 5. Block Diagram of the System
(a)

Figure 6 shows the prototype for the proposed mobile Sensor Characteristics
robot. 14

12
Possible
Trayectoria
posible
Trajectory
10

Pulse Width [ms]

8
Object 1
6
Object 2
4 Object 3

0
0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5
Distance [mts]
Ultrasound
Transductor Transductor
Infrared
deTransducer
ultrasonido infrarrojo
Transducer (b)
Figure 8. Pulse width-distance characteristic of the object: a) one object,
b) two objects

VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

Figure 6. Prototipo Propuesto
V. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND TEST
In this section results obtained for the designed hardware
and the developed software for the prototype are shown.
Figure 7 shows a picture of the system prototype.
The developed system proposes the solution to the
problem of determining and calculating distances. The
electronic systems provide information to the mobile robot to
give him autonomy in the decisions making process, which
depend on the assigned task and the environment where the
robot is immersed.
Unlike other systems with sensors, the presented work
not only detects distance, but allows obtaining a
measurement of the distance to the object found.
In the future, the robot will be equipped with several new
transducer systems. The objective in the future work consists
in providing to the mobile with an appropriate environment
to occupy it in an autonomous way (to be parked in a space
according to its size). Currently some work is been made to
achieve such a goal.

Figure 7. Developed Prototype
In Figure 8, some of the performed measurements are
shown. The relation between distance and pulse width is
analyzed. The measurements performed of the distance from
the object location and the equivalent to the time of the
signal duration.
REFERENCES
[1] R. A. Sigwalt, C. O. R. Negrão, and P. C. Tonin, Influência do
Escoamentono Processo de Incrustação. Departamento Acadêmico de
Mecânica,Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica do Paraná,
Seminário de Ciênciae Tecnologia, 2002. (In Portuguese).
[2] J. L. Rose, “Recent advances in guided wave NDE,” in Proc. IEEE
Ultrason. Symp., 1995, pp. 761–770.
[3] J. Barshinger, J. L. Rose, and M. J. Avioli, Jr., “Guided wave
resonance tuning for pipe inspection,” J. Press. Vessel Technol., vol.
124, no. 3, Aug. 2002, pp. 310–330.
[4] EyeBot: http://robotics.ee.uwa.edu.au/eyebot/

978-1-4244-5353-5/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE 288

[5] Bates, M., Interfacing PIC microcontrollers, Newnes Edition, USA
2006.
[6] Lovine J., PIC Microcontroller Project Book, Tab Books, USA,
2000.[7] Lovine J., PIC Robotics A Beginner’s Guide to Robotics
Projects Using the PICmicro, McGraw-Hill, USA, 2004.
978-1-4244-5353-5/10/$26.00 ©2010 IEEE
[7] K. R. Lohr and J. L. Rose, “Ultrasonic guided wave and acoustic
impact methods for pipe fouling detection,” J. Food Eng., vol. 56, no.
4, Mar. 2003, pp. 315–324.
[8] C. M. Fortunko, “Generation and reception of ultrasonic signal—
Ultrasonic testing equipment,” in Nondestructive Testing Handbook,
2nd ed., vol. 7, Amer. Soc. Nondestructive Testing, Columbus, OH,
1991.
289