Micro Mouse Design, Implementation, and Testing Report: 5ELEN004W

This report presents a detailed design and implementation of a micro mouse robot, covering various aspects of the project. The report begins with an introduction to micro mouse technology, its history, and current advancements. It delves into background theory, including motor theory, stepper motors, sensors, electromagnetic waves, noise, navigation, mapping, batteries, and the MBED platform. The main body then outlines system requirements, specifications, hardware design (chassis, power distribution, motor drivers, and sensor configuration), and software and logic design (system discussion, software structure, sensor logic, and state machine implementation). The report also includes hardware implementation and testing strategies, circuit layout diagrams, and a conclusion summarizing the project's findings. References are provided at the end of the report. The report is submitted as part of the 5ELEN004W module.

Designing a Micro
mouse

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Task 1: Background theory....................................................................................................3
Motor theory......................................................................................................................3
Stepper motor types & control...........................................................................................4
Sensors & electromagnetic waves.....................................................................................5
Noise & Interference..........................................................................................................6
Navigation..........................................................................................................................7
Mapping and path analysis................................................................................................8
Batteries & load.................................................................................................................9
The MBED platform........................................................................................................10
Task 2: System requirements................................................................................................11
Operating environment....................................................................................................11
Functional requirements..................................................................................................12
Mechanical requirements: Force calculations.................................................................14
Task 3: Specifications...........................................................................................................15
Chassis – overall materials and shape, position of sub-components...............................15
Power source – type.........................................................................................................16
Motors – type of motors & how many.............................................................................18
Sensors – types of sensors & how many.........................................................................18
Budgets: Costing (weight/ financial/power)....................................................................19
Task 4: Hardware design......................................................................................................20
Chassis dimensions, layout & design..............................................................................20
Power distribution............................................................................................................21
Motor Drivers..................................................................................................................22
Sensor configuration and circuits....................................................................................22
Power source....................................................................................................................22
Task 5: Software and logic design........................................................................................22
Overall system discussion................................................................................................23
Software structure............................................................................................................24
Sensor logic used for navigation......................................................................................25

Post processing of sensory information...........................................................................26
State machine implementation.........................................................................................26
Mapping and Path analysis solutions...............................................................................27
Task 6: Hardware implementation and testing strategy.......................................................30
Circuit layout diagrams (Vero board layout)...................................................................30
Testing strategy................................................................................................................30
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................33
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................35

INTRODUCTION
Micro mouse can be defined as the even where the small robot Mouse solves a 16 into 16
maze. It is initiated in the late 1970. Such events are held worldwide and are considered as the
most popular Mouse in the United Kingdom, United States, Japan korma Singapore korma India
korma South Korea and Sri Lanka (Ge, Yong and Dawei, 2019). It is made up of a 16 into 16
cells grid and each and every consists of 180 mili metre square with walls of 50 mili metre high.
It is completely and autonomous Robot that should find their way from a starting positions that is
predetermined to the central area of the maze which is unaided. The mouse is requiring to keep
the accurate track of where it is and needs to discover walls by the time as it explorers and maps
out the maze and detect when it reached the target. After reaching to the target the mouse will
technically execute additional searches of the maze until and unless it finds out an optimal route
from the initial point to the end point. By the time the optimal route has been found out the
mouse will run as per the route in the shortest time period (Cao, Dai, Na and Li, 2021). There is a
new version available of micro mouse that is known as the half size micro mouse which has been
introduced for 30th all Japan micro mouse competition 2009. Instead of a 16 into 16 maze the
new competition utilizes up to a 32 into 32 maze. Cell and wall dimensions have been reduced
by half, providing a new challenge. There is also have been a half size competition in Europe in
Hungary in 2015 and in the UK in 2018. Micro mouse can utilise a different searching
algorithms. There are various common search algorithms which utilizes the variations of the
Bellman flood fill method, such algorithm includes graph traversal and tree traversal algorithms.
Micro mouse can run at over approximately 3 metres per second which is based on the design of
the maze. Currently the world record of mouse is 3.9 to 1 seconds and is executed by one of the
famous Builders named Ng Beng Kiat. Performance of the micro mouse in the recent years has
enhanced and advanced considerable. In the year 2015, there is a mouse who was the winner and
run with the forward acceleration and braking well over 10 metre per square. That is why micro
mouse are considered the highest performing autonomous robots among all the robots. Recently
robots are equipped with a fan to generate a partial vacuum why you the micro mouse is running.
There is a down force available in an additional manner which has made the possibility in a huge
enhancement in performance of the micro mouse. If compared to the non-fan Mouse, straight
line posting of the micro mouse can easily exceed up to 2.5 grams (Hirapara, 2019). The
following discussion is made on the background theory which consist the motor theory, stepper
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motor types and control, sensors and electromagnetic waves, noise and interference navigation,
mapping and path analysis, batteries and load and the MBED platform. System requirements
which consists of operating environment, functional requirements and mechanical requirements.
Specifications which consist overall materials and shape power source, Motors, sensors and
budgets. Hardware design which consist dimensions and layout, power distribution, motor
driver, sensor configuration and circuits and power source. Software and logic design which
consists overall system discussion, software structure, sensor logic used for navigation, post
processing of sensory information, state machine implementation and mapping and partner
solutions. Hardware implementation and testing strategy which contains circuit layout diagrams
and testing strategy with proper findings and conclusion.
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MAIN BODY
Task 1: Background theory
Motor theory
This is a theory which basically operates on three assorted physical principles such as
magnetism, electro statistics and piezoelectricity. In magnetic motors, such fields are formulated
in both the rotor as well as the stator. The product among these two fields renders increment to
the force and therefore torque on the shaft of the motor (Kerdvibulvech and Junmee, 2021). Such
motor converts the electrical energy into mechanical energy. They operate via the
communication among the magnetic field and electrical current. It is powered by direct current
sources such as batteries and alternating current such as power grid. An electric generator is
technically similar to an electric motor but functions with a reversed flow of power which
converts mechanical energy into electrical energy.
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Stepper motor types & control
There are three types of stepper motors and controls such as first is permanent magnet
stepper which means they have rotors which are constructed with magnets that are permanent in
nature. They communicate with the electromagnets of the stator to generate rotation and torque.
In comparison with others, they generally have low power requirements and can generate more
torque per unit of power which was input by the user (Yuan, Liu and Liu, 2018). Second is
variable reluctance stepper which means that they are not produced with permanent magnets.
Instead, they are constructed with the help of iron which is plain in nature and resemble a gear
around the boundaries of the rotor. Third is hybrid synchronous stepper which means that it
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utilises the best characteristics of permanent magnet and variable reluctance steppers. Therefore,
it has both high torque and high angular resolution.
Sensors & electromagnetic waves
There are some examples of electromagnetic radiation such as radio waves, microwaves,
infrared, visible light, ultraviolet X and Y rays. There are waves which has a nature of travelling
at a high speed of light in a vacuum such as electric and magnetic components of approximately
300 million metre per second. Both of the waves oscillate at right angles to each other and
collectively both the wave moves in a direction perpendicular to both of the feels oscillations.
Just like other waves they have a frequency, which is considered as the number of crest per
second or a wavelength which is considered as the distance between successive crest (Zheng,
Dai, Cao and Liang, 2019). There are several types of sensors which are needed to detect the
assorted ranges of electromagnetic radiation. Aerials are the most suitable for radio detection
waves and transmissions of microwave use by the Wi-Fi or the Bluetooth devices. There are
Optical Sensors for example charge-coupled devices which are utilised for the infrared and
visible wavelength. There are sensors which are futuristic has raised in the form of nanoscale
along with the hybrid multi functionality sensors which meets the demands of multiple
challenging applications or systems.
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Noise & Interference
Micro mouse sensors are highly associated to the various sources of interference noise
and errors. It is important to capture some set of data as a samples that let the person to do simple
examination of the effects of such interferences. It is important to set up the test Rig along with
the section of wall placed approximately 50 millimetres away from the sensors. This renders the
user to give large reading where interference or noise must be in a small proportion of the results.
For example, 4096 samples are considered of about 250hz and the results examined in excel with
a data analysis tools as a built in nature (Lee, Sim, Park and Yi, 2020).
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Navigation
There are different challenges for the navigation of micro mouse present in it such as at
the time of exploration it is found out that the user must be relative be careful and they cannot
afford to lose their location at any time (Ambeskar, Bondre, Turkar and Gosavi, 2019). The
reason behind extra care is that it gives the permission to detect the walls in cells which is not yet
visited. The speed of the mouse is likely to be lower or additional while checking activity which
exist to take care about the not missing of War editor due to the reason of variation in the
reflection of different walls. Moreover, calibration of real time sensors can be possible. After the
centre has been found out it is decided that whether to carry the best route for just run with the
once the user have. Therefore, to perform a speed run it is assumed that the rules which are
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