Arduino Projects: RF Controlled

Robot
Here we present a simple Arduino-board based robot that can be driven remotely using
an RF remote control. -- Robin Chalana

Fig. 8: Authors prototype

Here we present a simple Arduino-board based robot that can be driven
remotely using an RF remote control. This robot can be built very quickly in a
small budget. The RF remote control provides the advantage of a good
controlling range (up to 100 metres with proper antennae) besides being
omnidirectional.
Circuit

description

The block diagram of the robot is shown in Fig. 1. It has two major sections:
(a) transmitter and (b) receiver and motor driver. The transmitter circuit (Fig.
2) is built around encoder IC HT12E (IC1), 433MHz RF transmitter module

(TX1) and a few discrete components. The receiver and motor driver circuit
(Fig. 3) is built around Arduino UNO board (BOARD1), decoder IC HT12D (IC2),
433MHz RF receiver module (RX1), motor driver IC L293D (IC3), regulator IC
7805 (IC4) and a few discrete components.

Fig. 1: Block diagram of Arduino-based RF controlled robot

Fig. 2: Circuit of transmitter section

Arduino UNO board. The heart of the robot is Arduino UNO board. Arduino is
an Open Source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-touse hardware and software. It is intended for artists, designers, hobbyists,
and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.
The Arduino Uno board is based on the ATmega328 microcontroller. It
consists of 14 digital input/output pins, six analogue inputs, a USB
connection for programming the on-board microcontroller, a power jack, an
ICSP header and a reset button. It is operated with a 16MHz crystal oscillator.
It contains everything needed to support the microcontroller. It is very user-

friendly; simply connect it to a computer with a USB cable to get started. The
microcontroller

on

the

board

is

programmed

using

the

Arduino

programming language and the Arduino development environment.

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Remote control. For controlling the robot remotely, Holteks encoderdecoder pair (HT12E and HT12D) together with a 433MHz transmitterreceiver pair is used.
HT12E and HT12D are CMOS ICs with working voltage ranging from 2.4V to
12V. Encoder HT12E has eight address and another four address/data lines.
The data set on these twelve lines (address and address/data lines) is serially
transmitted when transmit-enable pin TE is taken low. The data output
appears serially on DOUT pin.

Fig. 3: Circuit of receiver and motor driver

The

data

is

transmitted four times in succession. It consists of differing lengths of

positive-going pulses for 1 and 0, the pulse-width for 0 being twice the
pulse-width for 1. The frequency of these pulses may lie between 1.5 and 7
kHz depending on the resistor value between OSC1 and OSC2 pins.

The internal oscillation frequency of decoder HT12D is 50 times the

oscillation frequency of encoder HT12E. The HT12D receives the data from
the HT12E on its DIN pin serially. If the address part of the data received
matches the levels on A0 through A7 pins four times in succession, the valid
transmission (VT) pin is taken high. The data on pins AD8 through AD11 of
the HT12E appears on pins D8 through D11 of the HT12D. Thus the device
acts as a receiver of 4-bit data (16 possible codes) with 8-bit addressing (256
possible channels).
Transmitter circuit. Switches S1, S2, S3 and S4 are interfaced with AD8
through AD11 of encoder HT12E for forward (FWD), reverse (REV), left (LEFT)
and right (RIGHT) motions, respectively. Resistor R1 is connected between
oscillator pins 15 and 16 to set the transmitter frequency.
HT12E is permanently enabled for transmission by connecting its TE pin to
ground. When any switch, say, S1, is pressed, the corresponding data is
serially transmitted from DOUT pin through the RF ASK transmitter module.
A 9V battery is used to power the circuit.

Fig. 4: An actual-size, single-side PCB for the RF

transmitter

Fig. 5: Component layout for the PCB in Fig. 4

Fig. 6: An actual-size, single-side PCB for the RF receiver

Fig. 7: Component layout for the PCB in Fig. 6

Fig. 8: Authors prototype

Download PCB and component layout PDFs: click here

Receiver and motor driver circuit. Assuming that address pins on the encoder
and the decoder are identical, when any of the switches on the transmitter
(marked as FWD, REV, RIGHT, LEFT) is pressed, the corresponding data pin of
the decoder goes low. The data outputs from D8 through D11 of HT12D (IC2)
are fed to pins 2 through 5 of Arduino UNO board to generate appropriate
logic outputs from pins 8 through 11 of Arduino UNO board.

Outputs from pins 8 through 11 of Arduino Uno board are fed to IN1 through
IN4 of L293D (IC3) to drive both the motors M1 and M2 as shown in Fig. 3.
Outputs OUT1 and OUT2 drive motor M1, and outputs OUT3 and OUT4 drive
motor M2. Enable pins EN1 (pin 1) and EN2 (pin 9) are connected to Vcc for
always enabled output. Regulator 7805 (IC4) provides regulated 5V to the
receiver.
Construction
An actual-size, single-side PCB for the RF transmitter (Fig. 2) is shown in Fig. 4
and its component layout in Fig. 5. The PCB for the receiver (Fig. 3) is shown
in Fig. 6 and its component layout in Fig. 7. A suitable connector arrangement
has been made on the RF receiver PCB in order to extend connections to the
drive motors and the battery mounted on the chassis of the RF robot.

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Download source code: click here

Software
The source code file (RFROBOT.INO) for this project is listed at the end of this
article. The Arduino Uno is programmed with Arduino IDE software. The
ATmega328 on Arduino Uno comes pre-burned with a bootloader that allows
you to upload new code to it without using an external hardware
programmer. It communicates using the original STK500 protocol. You can
also bypass the bootloader and program the microcontroller through the
ICSP (in-circuit serial programming) header but using the bootloader makes
the programming quick and easy.
Select Arduino Uno from the ToolsBoard menu (according to the
microcontroller on your board) in the Arduino IDE and burn the program
through the standard USB port in the computer.

The author is a B.Tech in electronics and communication from Lovely

Professional University