The main trick making this design simple and affordable, is that the robot's chassis is actually the main board of the robot, where some supports for the wheels - also made of small parts of copper boards - are soldered to it. All the motors, and the skids are mounted on the main PCB.For an electronics hobbyist, PCB manufacturing is a skill that will be learnt sooner or later, so this design lets you use your experience in PCB manufacturing to design a high precision chassis for your robot.
LINE FOLLOWER ROBOT(OVERALL DESIGN):
Figure 1A shows a 3D graphical representation of the robot, where different parts can be clearly identified according to the following table:
Part # Description
1 The base of the robot, also the main PCB.
2 Front skid
3 Free Wheel, shaped as a pulley
4 Plastic pulley
5 Battery holder
6 Pipe clamp use to hold the motors
7 Ni-Cd 7.2V battery pack
8 1200 rpm 6V motor
It is clear that the drive train of this robot is differential type, meaning the two rear wheels are responsible of moving the robot forward and backward, but are also used to turn the robot in any required direction depending the difference of speed between the right and left wheels.
The first thing that need some explanation is the fact that there are only 2 wheels, Well, while not being the best thing to do, a caster wheel can sometimes be replaced with a skid, when the robot weight and size are not important, and when the robot is designed for indoor environment, where the robot can move on relatively smooth surfaces, where friction wont be a serious problem.
It may seem strange that the battery was placed on the top of the robot, and it is actually an important mistake, as a battery at that height totally destabilize the robot because it raises the center of gravity, increasing the moment of inertia.
For this size of robot, a smaller li-ion battery, placed beneath the robot, would have given much better results.
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