The development of a half-size micromouse and its application in mobile robot education

Abstract

The development of a half-size micromouse for international contests and mobile robot education is presented in this paper. It is used in a project-oriented course for senior undergraduate and graduate students about mobile robots, because the related contest is fun for students to explore many disciplines of knowledge and skills. To make a micomouse run in an unknown maze, students need to integrate the skills of designing 1) mechanical parts, 2) its printed circuit board, 3) sensor calibration procedures, 4) digital motion control algorithms, 5) path planning algorithms, and 6) maze solvers. To win some prize in a contest also requires students to devise some advanced new algorithms for a micromouse to find the best route and run faster. Therefore, improved algorithms about 1) a simple and efficient time-based diagonal maze solver, and 2) position and velocity resolution enhancement with accelerometers are also presented in this paper.