Ministry of Higher Education

Herat University
Engineering Faculty
Mechatronics Department

Automatic Vacuum Cleaner

Project Proposal

9/2/2019
By: Sayed Abdul Aziz
Submitted to: Sir Faisal Rahmani
ABSTRACT

“Robotics” - the word has a deep meaning. Robotics in turn takes the scale of
development by employing various branches, tools, and mechanisms and performs
a wide variety of functions for the benefit of mankind. From this whole ocean of
robotics, I have intended to build a basic self-controlled vacuum cleaner robot.

Being the students of 7th semester of Mechatronics department, the concept

that emerged in my mind was to develop a product that would be useful to most of
the people, so I decided to design and build a robot capable of vacuuming the floor
of a room or area without any human interaction other than just starting and
sometime operating the unit thus saving valuable human time.

In this robot, a vacuum cleaner and an Arduino UNO board have been
integrated with obstacle detecting sensors (IR sensors) and DC motors. This
integration enables the robot to detect obstacles and change its direction of
movement while cleaning the floor on its way.

The project is comprised of basically three modules, which handle all the basic
functionalities of the robot. The Integrated modules are as followed

1. The Controller part (Arduino UNO)

2. The Robot (Frame & DC Motors)

3. The Vacuum Cleaner.

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Table of Contents
ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION .....................................................................................................3
OBJECTIVE ..............................................................................................................4
TECHNICAL APPROACH.......................................................................................5
Components ............................................................................................................5
Working Principal ...................................................................................................6
PLANNED ACTIVITIES ..........................................................................................7
TIME FRAME AND COST ......................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ..........................................................................................................8
Tables and Figures .....................................................................................................9
Table 4.1 (Arduino Uno Technical Specifications) ................................................9
Figure 4.1 (Arduino UNO Board) ........................................................................10
Fig 4.2 (IR Sensor)................................................................................................11
Figure 4.3 (Ultrasonic Sensor) ..............................................................................11

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INTRODUCTION

Robot - an electromechanical device automates the work in many areas like

industrial power plants, military applications, domestic works, agricultural
applications etc. Robots are reliable means to bring objects, do settings, clean areas
etcetera at places where human intervention is rather impossible or can cause
hazardous effects on human health for example at nuclear power plants and
chemical factories. Robots can also be utilized for daily purposes in order to save
time and get effective and efficient results.

This project focuses on developing an Arduino controlled vacuum cleaner robot

(automatic mode included) based on the principle of robotics. Basically a robot is
built and the vacuum cleaner is attached to its chassis so that it can clean even
floors. The other competence of this robot is that it will be able to change its
direction as soon as it faces an obstruction on its way. This particular ability is
given to this robot by using IR sensors that can sense an obstacle up to a certain
extent.

The chassis of this robot must be made of a stiff material so that it can withstand
the weight of the vacuum cleaner and also a battery which might be needed if we
wanted to operate this robot wirelessly.

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OBJECTIVE
There are two main objectives is creating this robot.

1. Control Mechanism: This robot will be designed and programmed in such a

way that it would be able to navigate between obstacles. This feat will be
achieved by using a combination of obstacle detecting sensors. We will use
two IR sensors and an ultrasonic sensor so that our robot will be able to
navigate efficiently when it’s going forward.

2. Vacuum Cleaner Action: This robot will be designed and will be compiled
in a strong chassis including a DC vacuum cleaner. The vacuum cleaner
must be able to clean the area in front of it when it is moving. The chassis
must be designed very carefully so that the vacuum cleaner achieves
optimum result.

In order to achieve these objectives a lot of details must be considered.

 The chassis must be able to withstand enough pressure

 The motors and tires must be assembled in a way that the movement of the
robot is smooth and reliable
 The wiring of the robot must be done simply yet effectively
 The placement of the sensors must be perfect which can only be achieved
by testing the sensors in various positions so that the best results are
obtained.
 The design of the of the chassis must enable the vacuum cleaner to be near
to the cleaning surface

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TECHNICAL APPROACH

This project is accomplished by a clever interconnection and integration of

different electronic and mechanical equipment. We will first try to shortly
introduce the most important components used in the making of this robot, and
then we will try to illustrate how all of these components work together.
Components
1. Arduino UNO: Arduino Uno is a microcontroller board based on 8-bit
ATmega328P microcontroller. Along with ATmega328P, it consists other
components such as crystal oscillator, serial communication, voltage regulator,
etc. to support the microcontroller. Arduino Uno has 14 digital input/output
pins (out of which 6 can be used as PWM outputs), 6 analog input pins, a USB
connection, A Power barrel jack, an ICSP header and a reset button. The
technical specifications of Arduino UNO are given in Table 4.1 on the next
page and the picture of the Arduino UNO board is given at the end of this
document (fig 4.1).
2. IR Sensor: The sensor consists of two eyes. One eye sends the infrared light
and the other eye sees the reflection of that infrared light and measures the
distance. There are three wires coming from the sensor .i.e. Red, Black and
White or it can be Red, Brown and Yellow. Red is connected to 5V of
Arduino. Black or brown to Ground of Arduino. White or yellow to analog
input pin of Arduino. A picture of the IR sensor is given at the end of this
document (fig 4.2).
3. Motor Driving IC L239D: A motor driver is an intermediate module between
Arduino and the Motor. This is because Arduino microcontroller will not be
able to supply the current required for the motor to work it and can just supply
40mA; hence drawing more current will damage the controller permanently. So
we trigger the motor driver which in turn controls the motor. We will be using
L293D Motor Driver IC which will be able to supply up to 1A, hence this
driver will get the information from Arduino and make the motors work as
desired. Pin configuration of L293D is given in figure 4.3.

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4. Ultrasonic Sensor: As the name indicates, ultrasonic sensors measure distance
by using ultrasonic waves. The sensor head emits an ultrasonic wave and
receives the wave reflected back from the target. Ultrasonic Sensors measure
the distance to the target by measuring the time between the emission and
reception. An image of the ultrasonic sensor is given at the end of this
document.

5. DC vacuum Cleaner

6. DC motors (PMDC)

7. Chassis (Wooden or Metal)

8. Working tools

9. Connecting wires

10.Power Sources

Working Principal

The connections are shown in fig 4.5. I will try to simulate this circuit in
simulation software before connecting the components. When the robot is turned
on, it will be programmed to go straight. The vacuum cleaner will also be turned
on. The robot will go straight until the US sensor, which is placed at the front of
the robot, senses an obstacle. The IR sensors which are placed on the right and left
of the robot will then sense if there is a wall on either side. The robot will turn to a
side which does not have an obstacle. Extensive details of the working principle
will be given in the final report.

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PLANNED ACTIVITIES

1. Research on the current level of technology used in making automatic

vacuum cleaners.
2. Identifying compatible applications for the automatic vacuum cleaner robot
in different fields.
3. Determine the requirements for the robot to be suitable for the chosen
combination of applications. Compile a list of the evaluation criteria to be
used to compare the different concepts. The whole life cycle of the vacuum
cleaner robot will be considered, including development and testing,
manufacturing, operation, support and disposal.
4. Elaborate model and detailed design making
5. Simulating and testing the design
6. Documenting everyday progress
7. Final report

TIME FRAME AND COST

This project is intended to be completed and submitted before 20 th of November,
2019. The estimated cost of this project is around 7 to 8 thousand Afghanis based
on the availability and price of the needed components.

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CONCLUSION
Robotics has taken the scale of development by employing various branches,
tools, mechanism and performs a wide variety of functions for the benefit of
mankind.

I have decided to create a robot which can be very useful in day to day life for
humans. This robot also has a huge potential to be upgraded in different ways in
the future.

Automatic vacuum cleaner robot is made of simple electronic components and has
the ability to avoid obstacles and work non-stop without human intervention. This
automation is achieved through the integration of programming and different
sensors.

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TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 4.1 (Arduino Uno Technical Specifications)

Microcontroller ATmega328P – 8 bit AVR family microcontroller

Operating Voltage 5V

Recommended Input Voltage 7-12V

Input Voltage Limits 6-20V

Analog Input Pins 6 (A0 – A5)

Digital I/O Pins 14 (Out of which 6 provide PWM output)

DC Current on I/O Pins 40 mA

DC Current on 3.3V Pin 50 mA

Flash Memory 32 KB (0.5 KB is used for Bootloader)

SRAM 2 KB

EEPROM 1 KB

Frequency (Clock Speed) 16 MHz

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 Figure 4.1 (Arduino UNO Board)

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 Fig 4.2 (IR Sensor)

Figure 4.3 (Ultrasonic Sensor)

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REFERENCES
Vatsal shah, May 2015, Floor Cleaning Robot with Mobile-App or Autonomous

A Technical Analysis of Autonomous Floor Cleaning Robots Based on US

Granted Patents, European International Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 2
No. 7 September 2013. Liu, Kuotsan1, Wang, Chulun

http://www.instructables.com/id/Floor-vacuum-cleaner-robot-controlled-by-
Arduino-w/

https://www.researchgate.net

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