Robotics has come up in a huge way. It’s not just something to meddle with now. A dedicated stream of engineering has come up in several engineering colleges. College events, Robotic festivals and competitions see a very large interest from robot enthusiasts. We compiled this list of 20 robotics project ideas. How many have you tried?
Artificial Intelligence-Based Chatbot for Appliance Control
This project presents an artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot for controlling electrical home appliances using ESP8266-12E NodeMCU and Facebook Messenger platform. The platform for creating AI chatbot for Facebook is Chatfuel. The project also uses IFTTT and Adafruit IO for back-end support. The project is great for integrating AI with the Internet of Things (IoT).
Virtual Telepresence Robot Using Raspberry Pi
This robot with a camera is placed in a remote location to capture the environment in visual form using Raspberry Pi (RPi). The captured visuals are displayed on the user’s virtual reality (VR) headset.
An added feature allows the camera to move in the direction of the user’s head movements. This gives the user a real-time experience as if he is present where the robot is located.
This project is available at: Virtual Telepresence Robot Using Raspberry Pi
Make Your Own Remote Controlled Robot
To control a robot, the signal is usually sent through a wireless system using radio frequency (RF) and infrared (IR). To send an IR signal, you need a transmitter and a receiver with an encoding and decoding system. Presented here is a simple remote-controlled robot that can be controlled using an IR remote that is used for a TV or DVD player, or an equivalent IR remote.
This project is available at: Make Your Own Remote Controlled Robot
Arduino based Smartphone Controlled Robot Car
Nowadays smartphones can be used to control a host of electrical and electronic devices including motors, music systems and lights. Here we present an Arduino based robot car, which can be controlled using an Android smartphone having ArduinoRC application installed in it. This bot receives commands from your smartphone with the help of a Bluetooth module.
Colour Sensing Robot with MATLAB
Presented here is a MATLAB-based project where images taken by the camera are processed for colours and the position of a red-coloured object is extracted out of the image. Based on the position of the red coloured object in the image, different data are sent via COM port. The serial data are received by the robot and the corresponding movement is done. You can change the code for any colour that you find suitable. This project is just an example and you can use this for various industrial applications such as controlling heavy load-lifting machines with some object of a specific colour in your hand.
RF Controlled Robot
We start off with a simple Arduino-board based robot. It 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. The heart of the robot is Arduino UNO board. Another reason to get your hands dirty.
This project is available at: RF Controlled Robot
Android Phone Controlled Robot
Android smartphones are undoubtedly the most popular gadgets these days. You will find various apps on the Internet that exploits inbuilt hardware in these mobile phones, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, to control other devices. This project presents a robot that can be controlled using an app running on an Android phone.
This project is available at: Android Phone-Controlled Robot
Fire Extinguishing Robot
Many major accidents are averted by extinguishing fire at an early stage. The aim in this next project is to build a robot that can detect and extinguish fire. This fire extinguishing robot is a prototype of the actual one. Sensors used here are simple infrared (IR) photodiodes that detect IR rays coming out of the fire.
This project is available at: Fire Extinguishing Robot
Wireless Gesture-Controlled Robot
In this project, we are going to control a robot wirelessly using hand gestures. This is an easy, user-friendly way to interact with robotic systems and robots. An accelerometer detects the tilting position. A microcontroller gets different analogue values and generates command signals to control the robot. Robotic arms used for welding or handling hazardous materials are other implementations of this concept.
This project is available at: Gesture-Controlled Robot
Soccer Robot
This soccer robot can move forward, reverse, forward-left, forward-right, reverse-left and reverse-right with the help of an Android phone. The angle of rotation of the phone controls its speed of movement. The robot also kicks a ball on shaking the phone. Arduino UNO board is the heart of the circuit. Other components include servo motor, Bluetooth module JY MCU BT, motor driver L293D and two DC motors.
This project is available at: Soccer Robot
Namaste Greeting Robot
This fun project called ‘namaste robot’ uses an Arduino Uno board at its heart. The Arduino controls several motors simultaneously. The robot turns its head by 180° and scans people in its range using an ultrasonic module. If it finds anyone nearby, it greets the person with ‘namaste’ with both hands pressing together, which is the traditional Indian way of wishing people.
This project is available at: Namaste Greeting Robot
Line Following Robot
Manufacturing plants employ line-following robots with pick-and-placement capabilities. These move on a specified path to pick the components from specified locations and place them on desired locations. Microcontroller AT89C51 does the controlling of the robot. Other components include motor driver L293D, operational amplifier LM324, phototransistor and a few discrete components.
This project is available at: Line Following Robot
Robocar With Wireless Steering
This next project describes a wireless steered robot. Wireless steering senses the motion and transmits corresponding instruction to control the robot through RF communication. The robot also has an obstacle detection and avoidance system implemented. The accelerometer senses the movement of the steering. Arduino Uno board processes this data and corresponding instructions are transmitted through the RF transmitter to control the robot.
This project is available at: Robocar With Wireless Steering
Cellphone-Operated Land Rover
The control of robot involves three distinct phases: perception, processing and action. Generally, the preceptors are sensors mounted on the robot, processing is done by the onboard microcontroller or processor, and the task (action) is performed using motors or with some other actuators. In this project, the robot is controlled by a mobile phone that makes a call to the mobile phone attached to the robot. The tone corresponding to a button is heard at the processing end. The robot perceives this DTMF tone with the help of the phone stacked in the robot.
This project is available at: Cellphone-Operated Land Rover
RF-based Dual-mode Robot
This next dual-mode robot is operated manually using an RF-based remote control. The robot has some inbuilt intelligence to avoid obstacles by changing its path. Further modifications for applications like automatic vacuum cleaner are also available. In such an application the vacuum cleaner will automatically clean the floor, or you can direct it using the RF remote while sitting relaxed on your sofa.
Whisker for Robots
Whiskers for robots are simple switch-type sensors that work like an animal’s whiskers detecting nearby objects in the environment. When disturbed, the sensor sends a pulse to the robot to indicate that an obstacle is present. Sensitive but inexpensive general-purpose whiskers can be made using commonly available steel guitar strings. These strings are very flexible, conductive and easy to use.
This project is available at: Whisker for Robots
Remote Operated Spy Robot Circuit
This next robotics project explains designing a spy robot which can be controlled by the remote. The remote has four switches to control the robot in four directions. The robot senses the surroundings through the charge-coupled device (CCD) camera and sends to the receiver through the Radio Frequency (RF) wireless communication. We have already studied how to establish RF communication in RF Remote Control Circuit for Home Appliances post. This circuit is also designed using such kind of technology.
Human Detection Robot
This next project presents a simple human detection robot that is operated manually using RF technology. The main principle of the circuit is to detect the human using a human detection sensor. The wireless robot is operated manually using PC. The wireless technology used here is Radio Frequency technology. The data is transmitted to the receiver through RF. The robot is operated and controlled using the received data.
This project is available at: Human Detection Robot
Metal Detector Robot
This next project explains the metal detection robot that uses RF technology. The proposed system consists of transmitter and receiver circuit. The transmitter circuit transmits the commands required to operate the robot. The receiver circuit receives these commands through RF and moves the robot according to the received commands. A metal detector is interfaced to the controller in the receiver side. The robot stops and the buzzer starts ringing on finding any metal.
This project is available at: Metal Detector Robot
Land Survey Robot
This project implements a design which is used to conduct the land survey in order to calculate the area of that land and to divide it into subplots. Along with microcontroller, Zigbee module is attached to the robot to transfer the field data to control area. The Survey Robot is controlled through the ZigBee module to move about the entire plot. The distance travelled by the Survey Robot is calculated by timer concept and this value is then transmitted to the PC.
This project is available at: Land Survey Robot
Fruit Picking Robot
For a fruit gardener, it is extremely important to harvest fruit in time. It is time-consuming process and if not done in time would cause wastage and money loss. This robotic project idea is about fruit picking robot which not only works as a fruit picker but smart enough to pick only those fruits which are ripen enough.
This project is available at: Fruit Picking Robot
Stair Climbing Robot
Small, tracked mobile robots designed for general urban mobility have been developed for the purpose of reconnaissance and/or search and rescue missions in buildings and cities. Autonomous stair climbing is a significant capability required for many of these missions. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a new set of estimation and control algorithms that increase the speed and effectiveness of stair climbing.
This project is available at: Stair Climbing Robot
Maze Solving Robot
This next project builds a robot which can find its way in a line maze from start point to end point. Maze has some start and end points including many dead ends. To solve this puzzle we need to find right path in a fastest possible way. This project requires line maze which is black line on a white background. The basic requirements for the project would be two motors and 5 IR sensors.
This project is available at: Maze Solving Robot
Window Washing Robot
This project demonstrates the feasibility of creating a window-washing robot for use especially by the handicapped in cleaning residential double-hung sash windows. Under strict weight and size limits it is required to be placed on a window and either autonomously or via remote control clean the outside of a window with no other human intervention. This particular robot moves over the window as if cleaning it, wipes off a series of 12 mm-diameter dry-erase dots, and carries 50 mL of water to simulate the cleaning fluid used in the final device.
This project is available at: Window Washing Robot
Self-Balancing Arduino Bot
An inverted pendulum balance-bot is inherently unstable. Conveniently, the high center of gravity creates a large moment of inertia that slows the rate at which it will fall. We can leverage this slow fall by continually moving the wheels under the vehicle as it falls. If it leans forward, the wheels roll forward to counteract the fall. This project builds a self-balancing, inverted pendulum robot that’s also capable of autonomous navigation indoors or out
This project is available at: Self-Balancing Arduino Bot
We compiled this list of 25 robotics project ideas, however new projects keep coming up from time to time. Probably you may come across one not here. Hence, ideas are always welcome in the comments below as well. In addition to that, you can always send in your own projects.
This article was first published on 26 September 2016 and was recently updated on 6 December 2018.
This content was originally published here.
