Publications

Abstract : This project proposes a new design for an obstacle avoider whose main decision-making component is a decoder. The decoder acts as a substitute for the microcontroller. The obstacle detecting sensors provide the input for the decoder and the decoder conveys the inputs to the motor enabling the movement. The power of AND gates and OR gates is long forgotten. Every one of us remembers their truth table just like a fact. The truth that they can be used for application has become a practical joke. Microcontrollers have come into play regardless of the complexity of the application. An obstacle avoider is a simple robot that has one dimensional motion; it can find its way through obstacles. In such case an obstacle can be anything. It changes with every application. For e.g., (1) for a car the obstacle would be the road patches and (2) for a physically abled person in a wheel chair the obstacle would be people. Robots can be made without microcontrollers. Microcontroller can be reprogrammed to serve a different purpose. Generally, one cannot expect a common user to reprogram it. If it is coded as an avoider it is an avoider throughout. This led to the spark of the idea. The usage of a decoder instead of a microcontroller greatly reduces the cost; additionally the decoder being memoiy less the access time is negligible. © 2013 Asian Network for Scientific Information.