Line following system

Abstract

The very first question that anyone asked when the title of ‘line follower' was quoted was what really is the function of this project. So the first part of this text is dedicated in describing the function of this project and from where it originated,

The first suggestion, that was made by the lecturer was to construct a vehicle that would follow a line | drawn on the background, The idea was to construct Like a toy car that would be made just to follow a line.

The idea was further extended to design an x-y plotter that would be capable to drive a servo-slave, The x-y plotter is of more industrial use than the toy ear, such tracing x-y plotters can be used as profile cutting machines, tracing plotters and similar applications. The transducer used to detect the line was an optical one.

The main function of this project is that the optical transducer follow a line, which line should be dark (matt black) drawn on a light contrast (white paper). This optical contrast is required so that the transducer could detect the line with ease. For this to be achieved a control system is required. The transducer and its associated circuitry decide the way the line is curving to and signals are fed to servo amplifiers which drive the x and y motors. Overall feedback is achieved by the optical transducer itself. The position of the transducer in the x-y plane could be detected by position potentiometers and a servo could be connected to the master plotter. The main circuit that was developed in this project is the control circuitry. This project is not a complete system in itself but it gave such an important practical experience in designing a practical circuit.