GESTURE CONTROLLED ROBOT
Rohan B. Jhaveri
Het M. Mehta
Pratik T. Gala
D. J. Sanghvi College of engg.
Vile Parle, Mumbai 400056,
India.
D. J. Sanghvi College of engg.
Vile Parle, Mumbai 400056,
India.
D. J. Sanghvi College of engg.
Vile Parle, Mumbai 400056,
India.
rohanjhaveri46@gmail.com
hetmehta1@gmail.com
galaprateek777@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Recent discoveries have revealed that robots can be of
great help to human and can actually ease their life.
Therefore, increased opportunities for many people to
operate the robots have emerged. However, for many
people, it is often difficult to operate a robot using the
conventional methods like remote control or using image
processing techniques. So finding a more natural and
easy user interface is of prime importance. Only a few
robotic systems are used with user friendly interfaces that
possess the ability to control the robot by commonly used
objects. To facilitate a feasible solution to this
requirement, we have implemented a system through
which the user can give commands to a wireless robot
using different gestures. Gestures can be captured with
the help of an accelerometer and the signals are sent to
Arduino via Bluetooth module where they are processed
and the bot is controlled. Thus this paper deals with the
Design and Implementation of a “Wireless Gesture
Controlled Robot”. The experimental results are very
much as expected as the system produces real-time
responses and highly accurate recognition towards
various gestures. Additionally, since a camera module
has also been setup for real time video surveillance, the
same robot can also be used as a spy-robot for domestic
and security applications.
Keywords
Accelerometer, Arduino, Bluetooth module
1. INTRODUCTION
Controlling a robot has been a concern for many, as it
requires expertise to do so. But this is not possible all the
time. These robots are controlled and programmed using
computers, which is tedious and time consuming [1].
Hence it is the need of the hour to develop new
techniques to control these robots for variety of purposes
and which can be controlled by a lay man as well. Due to
the advancement in the computer technology user
interface of a personal computer has evolved from text
based command lines to graphical interface which uses
keyboard and mouse and with the ever-increasing
diffusion of computers into the society, it is believed that
current mode of interactions with computers will become
a gridlock in the effective utilization of information flow
between the computers and the humans. Hence to
overcome this drawback, gestures are being used to
control the robot [3]. Gestures are used by every people in
order to express their emotions and thought. Using these
gestures it is possible to control the robot in an efficient
way which is natural and convenient unlike controlling it
by a computer. Also, it helps to remotely control the
robot using Bluetooth on some other device. Hence using
this it is possible to wirelessly control the robot which
can be used for surveillance and monitoring purpose.
2. LITERATURE SURVEY
The evolution in the field of robotics was first marked by
the emergence of service robots in early 90’s which
stimulated the idea of a natural language interface
through keyboard; given by Torrance in 1941 [1] . The
idea of robotics was then embraced by speech
recognition which upgraded robotics to a new level but
was later marked with many shortcomings. It lacked the
standardization of commands due to varying languages,
pitch and accent of different users and proved little
costly. All these shortcomings paved the way for gesture
recognition system which started gaining researcher’s
interests. The researchers implemented vision based
interface that included gesture recognition assisted by a
camera to render geometrical information to the robots
[1]-[2]. One of the up gradations of the system was the
development of mobile robot systems that were
commanded through arm positions but failed to leave an
impression since the robotic system couldn’t recognize
gestures defined through specific temporal patterns. Also
the secondary reason was the camera’s poor illumination
at night and in foggy weather [4]-[5].With the evolution of
accelerometer and gyroscopes, gesture recognition was
no longer a rocket science. With the gesture recognition
system it became possible to move a robot accordingly
[6]-[7]. Many gesture recognized system were implemented
on wheel chair which eradicated the cumbersome job of
the patient, who had to use his strength in rotating
wheels. The cardinal advantage with the system was it
facilitated humans to interact with machines naturally
without any interventions caused by the drawbacks of
mechanical devices and made the system run smoothly[8][10].
3. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
3.1 Arduino:
Arduino Uno is an open-source platform for fast
prototyping. Basically Arduino is more flexible with
software and hardware which is easy to use and to
understand, hence can be used for variety of purposes. It
has a microcontroller which can sense the environment
by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can
affect its surrounding by controlling lights, motors and
other actuators [9]. It performs a variety of functions using
14 digital input/output pins (of which 6 can be used as
PWM outputs), 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz ceramic
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resonator, a USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP
header, and a reset button[14]. The advantage of using
Arduino over microcontroller is that it can perform all
the functions of a microcontroller in a more accurate
manner.
L293D it is possible to drive four motors and it provides
power supply of up to 36V. The L293D chip uses HBridge which is typically an electrical circuit that enables
a voltage to be applied across a load in either direction to
an output [10]-[13].
3.2 Accelerometer [10]:
3.5 Camera Module jmk ws-309as:
Accelerometer is an electromechanical device that
measures proper acceleration ("g-force"). Proper
acceleration is not the same as coordinate rate of change
of velocity. The accelerometer used is ADXL 335. It is a
triple axis MEMS accelerometer having low power
consumption as well as extremely low noise. It measures
acceleration with a minimum full-scale range of ±3 g.
Static acceleration of gravity in tilt-sensing applications,
as well as dynamic acceleration can be measured using it.
It gives analog output. Zero g (G-force) output is always
at half of 3.3v i.e. 1.65v output, while -3g is at 0v and 3g
is at 3.3v with full scaling in between them.
Camera module jmk ws-309as is a closed-circuit
television camera that uses radio band to transmit audio
and video signal to a receiver wirelessly. The audio and
video analog signals are encoded as digital packets over
high-bandwidth radio frequencies. Its advantages are that
it has an excellent video quality and also a wide
transmission range of 50 feet approximately. It can be
used as a wired camera or can be powered using a
battery.
3.3 Bluetooth Module HC-05:
For transparent wireless serial connection setup, an HC05 module is used. Bluetooth module for Arduino is one
of the modules are widely used in wireless
communications. HC-05 is a class-2 Bluetooth module
with Serial Port Profile, which can configure aq`s either
Master or slave. a Drop-in replacement for wired serial
connections, transparent usage. You can use it simply for
a serial port replacement to establish connection between
MCU, PC to your embedded project and etc.
3.4 L293D: Motor Driver:
The L293D is a monolithic, integrated, high voltage, high
current and has 4 channel drivers. It has the capability of
providing an output current of 600mA per channel. Using
Fig1. Surveillance bot
Fig2. Block Diagram
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4. IMPLEMENTATION
4.1 Generation and Transmission of
Command Signals:
According to the gesture in which the user directs his
hands to move the robot, control signals are generated,
which are unique for each direction. For instance, if the
user wishes to progress the robot in the forward direction,
a small voltage proportional to the gravitational field
acting when the sensor (accelerometer) is produced when
the forward gesture is given. Different sets of values in
X and Y axes when other gestures are used. These
command signals are then transmitted wirelessly to the
Bluetooth module (HC-05) via the Bluetooth module
present in the transmitted side i.e. on the glove. A
Gesture Controlled robot is a kind of robot which can be
controlled by hand gestures not by old buttons.
According to the block diagram shown in Fig 1.One just
need to wear a small transmitting device in his hand. The
transmitter device includes an Arduino; accelerometer
and a Bluetooth device. This will transmit an appropriate
command to the robot to get the desired robot. At the
receiving end this data is received by another Bluetooth
module which is then processed by another Arduino and
is given to the motor driver IC to control the movements
of the motors and also a camera is used for surveillance
purpose.
frequency antenna to the connected device. This not only
helps the user to control his robot car freely, but also
allows him to identify where his robot actually is and
guide the car accordingly, without having to actually
trace its motion continuously.
5. RESULT
Various experiments have been conducted to determine
the best fitting correlation value for this project on
gesture controlled bot. A 2 axes of the accelerometer is
used for the project i.e. X and Y. The analog values
obtained from the accelerometer were from the range 0-5
volts which were mapped to 10 output channels which
were ranging from 0-1023 using analogRead() function.
For forward and backward motion, Y axis values are
found to be constant. Similarly for left and right motion
X axis values were found to be constant.
4.2 Reception of Command Signals:
The Bluetooth module HC-05 is a standard device for
wirelessly communicating with Bluetooth devices via
radio frequency. As soon as it is paired with the
controller Bluetooth module placed on the transmitter or
glove side, it readily accepts data in the form of bytes,
which are actually the command signals transmitted by
the transmitter Bluetooth module. The data received by
the module is then passed on to the Arduino controller.
Fig3. Hand Gestures
Table1. Accelerometer Readings
GESTURES
X
axes
value
Y
axes
value
Fig
LEFT
309<X<327
362<Y<398
3.3
RIGHT
309<X<327
266<Y<306
3.4
FORWARD
269<X<306
344<Y<354
3.1
BACKWARD
349<X<384
344<Y<354
3.2
4.3 Driving the motors of the robot car:
L293D motor driver takes digital signal as an input from
the Arduino and gives digital output to the DC motors of
the robot. Speed control of the DC motors can also be
achieved by this IC.
4.4 Robot in Action:
This is the actual robot consisting of all the hardwareBluetooth module HC-05, Arduino and L293D motor
Driver circuit on the robot chassis having power supply
provided by the rechargeable batteries. The entire system
is simply controlled by the gesture.
4.5 Live Surveillance:
The robot chassis along with the system hardware also
contains a camera module affixed on top of it. This
camera captures medium quality images and
continuously transmits them wirelessly via its radio
6. CONCLUSION
In the race of man v/s machines, hand gesture controlled
bot comes as an e.g. of companionship of man and
machine. Taking the technology to the next level from
speech recognitions and wired connections, the
technology of wireless hand gesture control is used.
There is a rapid growth on application development
considering gesture recognition system. So in this paper,
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a model of a robot based on “Human Machine
programmer” can also control a robot quickly and in a
natural way.
7. APPLICATIONS:
1. It can be used in military operations; i.e. sent ahead of
infantry to investigate potential ambushes.
2. It can be used for supervision in various hazardous
places.
3. It can also be used for traffic monitoring.
4. It can also be used in home automation system in
which other electrical appliances can be controlled using
additional gestures.
5. Can be used in wheel chair.
8. FUTURE SCOPE
Presently in the system Bluetooth is used for
transmission which restricts the robot to a small range.
To overcome this restriction Bluetooth can be replaced
by Wi-fi or Zigbee module to increase the range and also
IP cameras can be attached to improve video
transmission range as well as quality. Also a secure and
encrypted transmission can be done using such
connections. Various sensors can be attached to it as per
user’s requirement like metal detectors for detecting
metals below small tunnels, gas sensors to detect gas
leakage in remote areas in industries. By attaching a
robotic arm on it, it can be used for picking and
transporting various objects, as well as it can be used for
working in hazardous conditions. Similarly by attaching
an extinguishing cylinder it can be used as fire
extinguishing robot. This concept can be used in home
automation. In addition GPS and GSM Modules can also
be attached to the system in which co-ordinates of any
military base or any other activities can be directly sent
to the base station.
9. REFERENCES
[1] Waldherr, S., Thrun, S., and Romero, R., “A Gesture
based interface for Human-Robot Interaction”, Kluwer
Academic Publishers, Netherland, 2000.
[2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesture_recognition
[3]Cannan. J. and Hu, H., “Human-Machine Interaction
(HMI):ASurvey”.[Online].Available:http://www.dces.ess
ex.ac.uk/staff/hhu/Papers/CES-508%20HMI-Survey.pdf.
[4] http://arduino.cc/en/Guide/HomePage
[5] http://luckylarry.co.uk/arduino-projects/control-a-dcmotor-with-arduino-and-l293d-chip/
[6]http://www.ijtre.com/manuscript/2015020794.pdf
[7]http://www.ijtre.com/manuscript/2014011107.pdf
[8] http://ethesis.nitrkl.ac.in/5026/1/109EI0341.pdf
[9]http://ijsetr.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/07/IJSETRVOL-2-ISSUE-3-749-755.pdf
[10] Pedro Neto, J. Norberto Pires, and A. Paulo
Moreira, “Accelerometer-Based Control of an Industrial
Robotic Arm”, IEEE International Symposium on Robot
and Human Interactive Communication, Toyama, Japan,
2009.
[11]http://www.seeedstudio.com/wiki/Serial_port_blueto
oth_module_(Master/Slave)
[12]http://thesai.org/Downloads/IJARAI/Volume2No5/P
aper_11Gesture_Controlled_Robot_using_Image_Processing.pdf
[13] http://duino4projects.com/control-dc-motor-arduinol293d-chip/
[14]http://www.rroij.com/open-access/real-time-dcmotor-speed-control-using-pidcontroller-in-labview.pdf
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