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A Novel Approach in Smart Vacuum Cleaner

P.Saraswathi1, *B. Felcia Liganz Deshna2, L. S. S. Jeyaroshini3, P. V.
Jeyasree4, C. Madhuvarshni5
Assistant Professor, Velammal College of Engineering and Technology, Madurai ,India
1

2,3,4,5
Student, Velammal College of Engineering and Technology, Madurai ,India

Abstract

In the present-day scenario, we all are so occupied with our businesses that we find it difficult to make time for
household chores especially cleaning. Our project aims to ease yourself with this situation by occupying yourself with our Robot
Vacuum Cleaner. This little robot is built using Arduino. It comes with a very simple mechanism. It has three parts in the bottom
(a small chamber for storing the dust, the middle portion includes the motor, fan, and the battery socket on the top (there is a
cover or cap for the battery). It has a DC motor and a fan. This motor is directly connected to 3V via a simple switch. As we are
powering our robot with a 7.4V battery, we will cut the connection from the internal battery and power it from the 5V power
supply. You will have your house clean with just the press of a button. It sucks all the dirt and bits from your floor calmly and
smoothly without hesitation. It is compact, portable and light-weighted. It comes with an Ultrasonic sensor which helps the robot
to avoid obstacles by itself and move freely all around the room until it is properly cleaned. So all you need to do is click the
button and wait for the robot to do it’swork.
Keywords: Vacuum cleaner, Arduino Uno, Ultrasonic Sensor, Servo Motor, Motor Shield, Cleaning robot

Introduction

A very notable household chore is floor cleaning which is often considered unpleasant, difficult, awkward
and boring. In most cases, cleaners are hired to do the task rather than the household residents do it. In the current
COVID situation since social distancing has to be maintained, a greater number of people cannot clean together.
With the advancement of technology, robots have gotten more attention of researchers to ease the life of mankind.
The Internet of things (IoT) is a network of physical devices that are embedded with electronics, sensors, software
and network connectivity to share the data. The discomfort posed by the above recurrent chore can be made to fade
away with the development of a vacuum cleaner that could assist human with such a task. In this project, an
automated vacuum cleaner is designed. It consists of a RC car to which a vacuum cleaner is attached. Ultrasonic
sensor is attached to the front of the car which is used to measure the distance if any obstacle is detected. Suppose, If
there is an obstacle then the car changes its course as per the code. Vacuum cleaner consists of CPU Fan which runs
by a battery. At the front of cleaner, a pipe is attached to suck the dust from the floor. The cleaner has space to
collect the dust. Once it gets filled, it should be removed and cleaned manually. Vacuum cleaner will be
carried on the RC car and the direction of the wheels depends on the code uploaded to the Arduino.

Requirement Analysis
Hardware
 Arduino UNO - The key hardware of the prototype, Arduino Uno is shown in. This is a microcontroller which
is used for interfacing hardware and software. To do the same, USB cable is required. Once the board is
 embedded with the code, it can be operated by a battery supply without using any PC or laptop.

 Propeller - This is used in the vacuum cleaner which has a rating of 12 volts. It rotates at maximum of 200
rpm. As the voltage increases, rpm increases until the value reached up to 200.

 Gear Motor - These motors essentially are the key components in this prototype. To make the machine move,
these are required. As the voltage increases, rpm also increases. The least rpm will be at 6V and

maximum12V.

 Motor Driver Shield - This is used to run different types of motors. L293D IC is the main IC present in this
shield [14–16]. The direction and speed of motors depends on the motor shield, as the shield is embedded on
Arduino UNO board and the speed and direction can be controlled by coding in Arduino IDE.

 Ultrasonic Sensor:
This HC-SR04 sensor is used for measuring distance. It uses sound waves to calculate the same. There are 4
pins–Echo, Ground, Trigger and VCC. External controller is triggered by Trigger pin that sends
 ultrasonic waves where as echo pin sends ultrasonic waves and duration it takes to travel decides the
distance between the car and obstacle. VCC will take up to 5V and gives the voltages so that the sensor
can run.

 Wheels - The wheels which are responsible for the movement of RC car. These are used to move in any
specified direction. Wheels are run by a DC Motor with a pre-defined RPM. Wheels rotate in the same
direction as DC Motor.

 DC Motor- The DC motor is used to rotate the propeller for the dust sucking process

Software:

This is an application written in C and C++. Programs can be written and uploaded to Arduino boards. The
version used in here is 1.8.9.
Methodology:

 RC Car - The construction of RC is as car is as follows. Plastic Cardboard has holes in specific areas. To these
places, using nuts and bolts, the motor is fitted, motors are attached with wheels. Motors are soldered with
wires – positive and negative. RC car is built by using 4 DC motors they run with the speed provided in
Arduino IDE code, it uses motor shield to work in desired speed and direction . Ultrasonic sensor attached to
RC car detects the distance at which obstacle is present in front of it. So, whenever it encounters any obstacles
such as walls, tables, chair or any big things that cannot be considered as garbage or dust, RC car which carries
vacuum cleaner changes its direction so that it won’t crash and destroy itself. The code fed to the Arduino runs
continuously and the cycle repeats in regular intervals whenever the obstacle is detected.

 Vacuum Cleaner - Vacuum cleaner is made up of 1.25L water bottle, Propeller, tape, Insulating tape.

Block Diagram:
Flowchart:

The steps to design the Vacuum Cleaner :

1. 2.5L Water bottle is cut into half horizontally.

2. Top portion has conical and cylindrical structure, the conical structure is cut.

3. The other end of the conical structure is covered with a gauze bandage to improve the vacuum.

4. Now, the cylindrical part which was seperated and taped with the conical part which has the gauze bandage.

5. The other end of the cylindrical structure is attached with a Propeller.

Modules
Home or domestic robots are mobile robots and mobile manipulators designed for household tasks such as floor
cleaning, pool cleaning, coffee making, and serving. The robot is designed keeping in mind following modules of
operation:

 Obstacle avoidance and Turn Movement

 Automatic Dry cleaning

Obstacle avoidance and Turn Movement:

The Ultrasonic sensors is used for the obstacle detection. These are sent as the input values for the Arduino
microcontroller. The HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensing element uses echo sounder to work out the gap to an object like
dolphins do. It offers wonderful non-contact detection with high accuracy associated stable readings in an easy-to-use
package from two cm to four hundred cm. Its operation isn’t restricted by daylight or black material. It comes with a
transmitter and recipient module as shown in figure
 The module consists of two Ultrasonic transduces of which one is acting as a transmitter and the other as a
receiver. The ultrasonic sensor helps in forward movement to detect objects slightly off-center which may come into the
robot’s path. As shown in figure, the ultrasonic sensor radiates the short and high-recurrence flag. These spread inside
the air at the rate of sound. The ultrasonic sensor comprises a multivibrator, attached to the base. The ultrasonic sensor
truly comprises of two sections; the anode that creates a 40 kHz wave and consequently the indicator recognizes 40
KHz wave and sends an electrical flag back to the microcontroller. The ultrasonic sensor enables the robot to pretty
much observe and recognize a protest, maintain a strategic distance from impediments. The collision avoidance is
authorized utilizing an ultrasonic sensor; that transmits an unintelligible heartbeat each 0.3s to discover any obstruction
inside the change of 100cm. The Servo functions as a motion controller with the Arduino Microcontroller to help move
the ultrasonic sensor

Autonomous Dry Cleaning

Automation is a great solution of this problem. So we make an autonomous floor
cleaning robot that operated by Arduino programming. Ultrasonic
sensor is the most important component for autonomous floor cleaning robot because
ultrasonic sensor works as eyes of robot. This robot is simple four wheeled Vacuum Cleaner which could smartly
avoid obstacles and vacuum the floor at the same time with the help of DC motor based Vacum Cleaner the operation
of Motor is controlled by Arduino Micro controller

Implementation:
12V supply will be given to both RC car and vacuum cleaner separately, once the car is started it measures the
distance between obstacle and vehicle by using ultrasonic sensor, further it moves in the forward direction as per the
code in Arduino IDE. If the distance is less than 20cm then RC car stops and reverses for a second and then moves
towards left side and measures the distance, again it gets back to its original position. After that it turns right and stops
for a second, after which it gets back to its original position. After measuring both the distances, whichever distance is
greater car starts to move in that direction to avoid the collision with any objects. If there are no obstacle in its path it
travels in straight direction without turning until it encounters any obstacle. The process repeats whenever there is an
obstacle in the path. Table 2 shows the comparison between the existing and the designed algorithm. In the existing
prototypes, through an application, there will be an interaction between the model and the user. However, in the
designed prototype, it is run through batteries and there is no human intervention needed. The algorithm is simpler and
is easier to debug as well.
Result:

Future Scope:
 Now we are working to make the robot smart enough to detect all objects in any position of room.
 In the future we hope to make the robot smarter such that when the robot cleans any room it will save the room
information about obstacle and its locations and if the user want to clean a room it just will restore information
and will clean faster the area.
 We hope to make the robot to clean tables such that it can detects edges and it will clean the tables without
falling down.
 In future, the robot can be used for both Wet and Dry surfaces. On the wet surfaces, it will be easy for women
to complete their work very much faster.
Conclusion:
In this project, Smart Vacuum Cleaner has been implemented. It was works on a pre-defined code inserted in
Arduino UNO. Whenever RC car encounters any obstacle, it turns to the side where the distance between obstacle and
car is more. This project helps collect the dust using a vacuum cleaner made using CPU fan and batteries without
human intervention thereby reducing the hazards to human health. This is a simple and cost-effective cleaner. However,
using a detachable bag may be better as removing the dust becomes simpler.

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