The aim of this project was the design and fabrication of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV), with certain capabilities. The UGV was envisaged to move on a pattern with a line-tracking, and pick and place capability. The UGV was designed to have the line tracking capability with black lines on a white background. The line-pattern could be a square or an oval, in shape. A lifting arrangement was housed on top of the UGV, to facilitate lifting and placement of small packs or tetra-packs. The designed lifting arm has two prismatic joints and a gripper to grip the desired object/ pack. Appropriate sensors are used to do the following: to control the UGV to stay on the path by tracking the line; to stop the UGV at the correct spots along the path, to pick and place the items; to facilitate picking of the desired item through end-effecter and the gripper. Two separate motors are used; one each for vertical and horizontal portions of the arm. Pushbuttons are used for the firmly grasping of the object and to loosen the grip of the gripper. The UGV operation has been demonstrated. The UGV moves from an initial starting point. While remaining on the path through line tracking, it moves to stops at the next desired location where the items to be lifted are placed on a table-like arrangement. The UGV aligns itself and adjusts its arm to pick the item, the gripper starts to tighten the grip till the limit switches operate. The gripper then lifts the object slightly upward, to clear it for movement to the destination, where in a similar but reverse moves, it places the object on the table there. It will again start to line track and move till next spot/ table is reached; it will pick the item and place at the next spot are per plan. It is capable of lifting loads less than 1kg. Required circuitry has been designed using the open-source Arduino Mega 2560. The prototype design can be further improved, in future, for better accuracy and reliability for possible utilization in practical applications.

BEMTS