Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-9, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
Bluetooth Controlled RC Car using Arduino
Sheetal Gandotra, Bhawna Sharma, Shreeya Mahajan, Tsering Motup,
Tahira Choudhary & Paras Thakur
Department of Computer Science, Government College Of Engineering and Technology,
Jammu
Abstract: It is through efficient electronic
programming that a computer can control a robot,
hence a robot can be thought of as an Electromechanical machine. Some of the essential
characteristics that a robot must have are sensing, movement, energy, intelligence. It
performs a task using control systems, various
power supplies and software all working together.
We developed an Android application which uses
remote buttons to guide an RC car’s motion.
Hence, the mobile device harbouring the Android
application acts as the car’s remote control.
Bluetooth is the basis of communication between
the controller and Android, using the USART
protocol.
Keywords: Android Smartphone,
module, robot, Arduino Uno.
Bluetooth
1. Introduction
The very primitive concept of smartphones is
believed to have been envisioned back in the mid1970s, but that vision didn’t come into fruition
until 1992 when IBM first showed its face.
Nowadays they come with richer entertainment
Function, efficient communication methods and
reinforced Processors. As Bluetooth is used for
Data Exchange, it is through this data exchange
capability that through Bluetooth, Devices are now
being controlled and monitored. Bluetooth
technology was created in 1994 by the telecom
dealer “Ericsson” for integrating with Smart
phones. But through the years, with dramatic
increase in smart phone Users, bluetooth has turned
them into all-purpose portable devices by
redefining the world of data exchange and
transferring wired devices into wireless devices;
capable of efficient communication and the fact
that host Bluetooth device is capable of
communicating with as many as seven Bluetooth
modules simultaneously through one link is proof
enough. Android is wide spread and influential in
today’s scenario, that using a smart phone as the
‘brain’ of a robot is already an active research field,
providing a number of opportunities and
possibilities. In this paper, we present a review of
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
current robots, which are controlled by mobile
phones and tablets. Specifically speaking, robots
which on receiving the commands can perform
simple actions like moving in all four directions, by
an Android application. This research paper has
been divided into the following five sections:
Section 2 describes the motivation of the work
done, Section 3 describes the setup, Section 4
describes the discussions about our experimental
setup, Section 5 is the conclusion and Section 6
gives glimpses of future possibilities.
2. Purpose:
We've projected this research work to provide
simpler hardware architecture, but with powerful
and concise computational platforms required to
build the Robot. Our purpose on educational
robotics is simple architecture so as to serve the
students an elegant idea so that they can build their
own robots at low cost and use them as a decent
platform for experiments in several courses, also
aid the robot’s designer to focus on their research
instead of Bluetooth connection infrastructure. The
following list shows the typical robot control
architecture:
2.1 Arduino Uno
Arduino is a microcontroller board, powered with a
battery or an AC to DC adapter. Arduino was
developed as an open source environment which
means that the Arduino board can be copied and
cloned. It is clearly the best platform for beginners
who are just getting started with electronics and
coding as there is a lot of support for Arduino in
terms of the add-on kit, the project codes, forums
and tutorials. Various sizes of Arduino board are
available and bigger boards means more memory,
maybe with a different controller and obviously
with more inputs and outputs. The Arduino, which
is based on the AT mega 328 can take the power
supply from either the Data Transfer Port or its DC
jack. The various characteristics of the Arduino
board are:
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-9, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
2.1.1 Digital Input and Outputs Pins:
2.2 Motor Shield:
Pins 0-13 on the Arduino board are the digital pins,
which can be served as inputs or outputs in
accordance with the software that was flashed.
Hence these pins rely on being either high/low or
0/1.
By using the Motor Shield, we’re basically adding
on capabilities on to the Arduino. It is better than
using just the Arduino as in that case, a whole lot
of more pins are required, not to forget the power
issues. The Motor Control chips allow much more
precise control over the DC Motors, which include
reversing etc. The Motor Shield can supply up to
12 V, 2 amp per motor channel. Motor Shield pins
are used to plug into the Female headers of the
Arduino. There are two sets of connectors on either
sides of the shield and each of them controls either
one stepper motor, or two DC motors.
2.1.2 Analog Input Pins:
The input pins (A0-A5) function between 0-5 V
and can be used identically to the digital pins, using
the aliases A0 (for input 0) through A5. . For most
Arduino users, the main function of the analog pins
is to read analog sensors, and digitize the Analog
Input, upon receiving one. Hence, if we put an
input of 3V signal in the Analog pins, the returned
output is an integer between 0-1023.
2.1.3 ATmega 328:
Arduino Uno is based on the ATMEL
microcontroller Atmega 328. Atmel picoPower 8bit microcontroller has the following features:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
32 kb ISP (Instructions per Second)
Flash memory with read-while-write
capabilities.
32 Pin count.
1024 B EEPROM
23 General purpose input-output
lines.
24 External and Internal Interrupts.
Serial Interface Device-USART.
Operates between 1.8-5.5V.
It achieves throughputs approaching 1MIPS
(Million Instructions per Seconds) per MHz, as it
can execute powerful instructions in a single clock
cycle. It lets us realize small projects without using
a full-sized Arduino board.
2.1.4 USART(Universal
Synchronous/Asynchronous Receiver/
Transmitter):
It can be programmed to communicate
asynchronously or synchronously with a serial
interface device. USART was primarily intended to
support synchronous protocols to make better use
of bandwidth when modules were analog devices.
In synchronous mode of communication, USARTs
transmit data in frames.
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
2.3 HC Bluetooth Module:
It is a Bluetooth Serial Module which converts
Serial port to Bluetooth and works in either of the
two modes: Master and Slave. The device named
after even number can operate in slave mode and
this configuration can’t be changed. But for the
device named after odd number, the users can set
the work mode (master or slave) of the device by
AT commands, as an example, between two
Arduino boards, one acts as the Master, the other is
the Slave. It is a Bluetooth SSP (Serial Port
Protocol) module which communicates with
Arduino via Serial communication. It needs a
power supply of 3.6V to 6V. Bluetooth Serial
Module is primarily used for replacing the serial
port line. This can be achieved when the Bluetooth
master device is connected to the Slave device,
resulting in the formation of a pair. It is through
this Bluetooth connection that the RXD and TXD
signals are sent and received. To communicate with
the Bluetooth adapter of other computers and smart
phones, the MCU has to be in the Bluetooth slave
module, the conditions being:
•
•
The communication must be between
Master and Slave.
The password must be correct.
2.4 DC Motors:
Electric Motors produce Mechanical movements by
taking in the electrical energy and producing
equivalent mechanical energy. Hundreds and
thousands of devices are powered by electrical
motors- from small pick-and-place robots to big
turbines- motors find applications in every
industry.
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-9, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
3. Block Diagram:
Figure 1: Block diagram of android smart phone
Controller Bluetooth Robot using Arduino Here is
a sample to control your robot/robot car using
Bluetooth module HC-05 and Arduino with an
android device. The microcontroller, with which
the bluetooth module and DC motors are interfaced
with, controls the whole Robot.
The controller receives the input from the Android
device via Bluetooth. Android smart phone
controller Bluetooth robot using microcontroller is
shown in figure 1.
Figure 2: Turn on the Bluetooth connection to
move the car in any of the four directions
(Screenshot)
4. Application Instructions:
4.1 Pair the HC-05 Bluetooth module with the
mobile and enter the password.
4.2 Select the device.
4.3 Upon clicking the "FORWARD ARROW", the
data "Forward" is sent to car moves FORWARD.
4.4 Upon clicking the "BACKWARD ARROW",
the data "Backward" is sent to the connected
Bluetooth Module and the car moves
BACKWARD.
4.5 Upon clicking the "LEFT ARROW", the data
"Left" is sent to the connected Bluetooth Module
and the car turns LEFT.
4.6 Upon clicking the "RIGHT ARROW", the data
"Right" is sent to the connected Bluetooth Module
and the car moves RIGHT.
4.7 Click on “OFF” icon to disconnect the paired
Bluetooth module.
Figure 3: Arduino Bluetooth RC Car Application
(Screenshot)
5. Conclusion:
Robots and smart phone are a perfect match for us
to realize smart living not only at work, but in our
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
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Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
Vol-2, Issue-9, 2016
ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in
homes, with the aid of easily available and widely
used technology, the Bluetooth. As the mobile
devices are becoming more advanced, using them
for controlling Robots and other wireless devices is
likely to be a huge trend. It can be concluded that
this idea of smart living will let us control our
surroundings remotely and wirelessly.
6. Future Work:
With the ever increasing problems, our knowledge
has to expand to adapt better to the changes all
around us. In the same way it is hoped that this
activity is a small step that would lead us to further
enhancements and goals.
Figure 2: Android Controlled Bluetooth Robot
7. References:
[1]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/mobilephones/11037225/20-years-of-the-smartphone-anevolution-in-pictures.html
[2]
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/AnalogInputPi
ns
[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Synchrono
us/Asynchronous_Receiver/Transmitter
[4]
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-motorshield/library-install
[5]
http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/arduinomotor-shield-tutorial/
Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR)
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