Introduction: Light Tracking and Obstacle Avoidance Robot With Arduino and Subsumption Architecture

By NoireSTEMinist
About: I am a professor of electrical engineering and robotics, Open Source Hardware Trailblazer, and co-founder of Black In Engineering and Black in Robotics. @drcaberry and @noiresteminist on most socials . It will…

This Instructable describes how to design a Subsumption Architecture which is a type of robot control algorithm based upon layers. Each layer has a priority and it is possible to switch them on and off based upon the sensor inputs. This one is based upon obstacle avoidance and light following, stay tuned for the next instructable where I add random wander as the lowest priority.

Supplies

SparkFun Inventor's Kit Version 4/1 Project 5 Autonomous Mobile Robot: https://amzn.to/3t7foh7

Step 1: Build the Autonomous Robot From SparkFun Inventor's Kit Project 5c

Build the Autonomous Robot Project 5C from the SparkFun Inventor's Kit available at the following link with instructions.

https://www.sparkfun.com/products/15267

Watch the first video to learn how to mount the photoresistor along side the sonar sensor so the robot can do light tracking and obstacle avoidance together.

Step 2: Write the Code for Subsumption Architecture With Light Tracking and Obstacle Avoidance

Watch the second video to modify the autonomous robot code to add in light tracking with obstacle avoidance.

Step 3: Watch the Robot in Action

Watch the third video to see what it looks like when the robot is working correctly. It should follow the light but then turn away if it gets close to an obstacle because obstacle avoidance takes a higher priority over light following.

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