Detection & Distinction of Colors using Color

Sorting Robotic Arm in a Pick & Place Mechanism

ABSTRACT:
Abstract: Color sorting Robot is one of the useful, costless and fastest systems in Industrial applications
to reduce manual working time and provides less human mistake when manual system is undertaken.
The objective of this project is to design an efficient, microcontroller based system that pick up right
color of objects and put it down at right place to optimize the productivity, minimizing the cost of the
products and decreasing human mistakes. The controller used is a PIC Microcontroller (18F452)
having high speed performance, low cost and 32 K bytes program memory. It communicates with color
sensor TCS 3200 and various motor modules in real time to detect the right color object and to control
the arm movement. Designed system can pick objects of 1kG weight and arm can rotate up to 3600.
Also, the use of easily available components reduces the manufacturing and maintenance costs. The
design is quite flexible as the software can be changed according to specific requirements of the user.
This makes the proposed system to be an economical, portable and a low maintenance solution for
industrial applications.

The main objective of this project is to develop a Robot which senses the colour of an object and picks
an object of the colour specified by the user.

FUNCTIONING OF THE SYSTEM:

 The above system contains 32 bit controller LPC2129, LCD, DC motor, motor driver and
keypad.
 Colour sensor is used to detect the colour of an object.
 The movement of the robot is controlled by the motor driving circuit (L293D).
 LCD is used to display required messages for the user.
 Key pad is used to enter the colour of an object to be picked by the robot.
 Buzzer is used to indicate the warning message on the LCD.

TECHNOLOGY USED:

 UART: Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter is used in serial communication

between two devices in conjunction with RS-232. Normally, we use 9600bps as the standard
baud rate with 1 start bit and 1 stop bit in this communication.

 Colour sensor: The circuit can sense eight colours, i.e. blue, green and red (primary colours)
 magenta, yellow and cyan (secondary colours); and black and white. The circuit is based on the
fundamentals of optics and digital electronics.

 L293D: L293D is a motor driving IC used to control the direction of rotation of the DC motor.

BLOCK DIAGRAM:

LCD

PC MAX DC Motor
232 Motor connected to
Driver Conveyor

Power
Key Pad LPC2129 supply

Color
Sensor

Buzzer
HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS:
 Power Supply - DC Adaptor 9V/1A
 Controller - LPC2129
 LCD - Liquid Crystal Display, 16 char x 2 lines
 DC motor driver - ULN2803 or L293D, 1No.
 MAX232 - For serial communication
 Hex keypad
 Buzzer

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS:
 Keil Micro vision.
 Embedded C.
 LPC2000 Flash Utility.

APPLICATIONS:
 This application can be used in Gold Mines, Coal Mines to detect the minerals present in the
mines.
 It can also be used to indicate any Fire accidents in some sensitive areas.

FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS:
We can incorporate lane detection, obstacle sensing and many other features to this project to
meet up with the required real time safety.

OUTCOME:
 Complete knowledge of design and implementation of embedded system based on ARM7
controllers.
 Knowledge and Implementation of RF-id and CAN
 Working knowledge of Keil IDE, Embedded C and Flash Utility.