Programming a Mobile Robot

This page describes some of the work with mobile robots that is carried out as part of our programme of teaching in embedded systems at the University of Leicester.

Further information about this teaching is available here.

These exercises are carried out using the "Mr Line" robot:

Mr Line is based on an 8051 microcontroller (an AT89C2051), and driven by two small DC motors. He has appropriate (IR) emitters and sensors, allowing him to follow a black line drawn on a white background.

Further information about Mr Line - including some starter code (in C) - is available from the manufacturer MicroRobot MA Inc.

What is the aim of this exercise?

Students taking the "Programming Embedded Systems I" module in 2002 had to design and implement suitable code - in C - that would allow their robot to negotiate an unknown track "as rapidly as possible".

The code for the exercise was written using the Keil C compiler, and the solutions were all based on the use of a co-operative scheduler.

Photographs of first race (Dec 2002)

[Thanks to You Qin Qin for taking these photographs]

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Last updated: 26 February 2003 13:09
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