SMART STRETCHER FOR MEDICAL

INDUSTRIES
Mohd Nizam Bin A. Rashid1, Dr Wahyu Mulyo Utomo2
Faculty of Electrical and Electronic Engineering,
Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia,
86400 Parit Raja, Batu Pahat, Johor.
nizam_wan@hotmail.com1, wahyu@uthm.edu.my2

Abstract-The Smart Stretcher for Medical passing a curve due to the friction of the
Industries is a mobile machine that can detect tire and the floor.
and folow the line drawn on the floor. In this
project, the path is predifined visible a white line This kind of robot can be used for hospital
on a black surface. A smart Stretcher robot is usage systems, blind assitive application.
divided into two main parts, namely the
controller and the prime mover system. For the Therefore, The Smart Stretcher structure and
controller system, PIC16F877A micro controller architecture issues and challenges along with thier
are used for this robot. Source code for technical issues and problems will be discussed in
programming is create using Micro C software section 2 and the programming subjects will be
and a coding code is programmed into explained in section 3 and the algorithms and
PIC16F877A using PIC burner. While on the solution os passing the lines will be illastrated in
prime mover, a circuit built and connected to section 4.
sensors circuit and DC motors. This Smart
Stretcher can sense the line with its Infrared Ray
(IR) sensors that installed under the robot. This
smart Stretcher designed with five modes of
operation, turn left/right, forward/reverse, and Line follower robot structure
stop. The data is transmitted to the processor by
specific transition buses. Hence, the processor is The electrical circuit of some line follower
going to decide the proper commands and then it robots can compare the analog signal received form
send them to the driver motor and thus the path sensors and then transmit the result to the processor
will be followed by the The Smart Stretcher. in digit ‘0’ or ‘1’ and some of them send the analog
signals to the processor ought to convert them to
digital form. Anyway, the analog signals must be
converted to the digital form and then tthe
Introduction
processor can process them.
Generally, The Smart Stretcher is one of the
The main elements of electrical structure are :
self operating mobile machines that follows a line
drawn on the floor. The path designed with white  Sensors
line on a black surface. The basic operations of the
 Analog to Digital Converter
line follower are as follows:
 Processor
 Capturing the line position with optical  Motor Driver.
sensors mounted at the front end of the
robot. Most are using several numbers of
photo-reflectors. Therefore, the line
Sensor Array

Comparator

sensing process requires high resolution ADC

LM324

and high robustness. Microcontroller Motor

 Streering the robot to track the line with PIC 16f877A Driver L298
any steering any phase compensation will
be required to stabilize tracking motion by
applying any other servo algorithm.
 Controlling the speed according to the lane
condition. The speed is limited during 1. The sensor
 This kind of robot uses Infrared Ray sensors to You can see schematic of sensor circuit in
find the path and direction; Infrared Ray sensor Fig. 4.
contain a match infrared receiver pair. White
surfaces generally reflect well, but while black
surfaces recflected poorly. If the receiver receives
the reflection ray, it means that the robot is on
white and if it cannot receive it, so the robot is on
black. These devices work by measuring the
amount of light that is reflected into the receiver.
Because the receiver also responds to ambient light,
the device works best when well shielded from
ambient light, and the distance between the sensor
and the reflective surface is small (less than 10mm).
IR reflectance sensors are often used to detect black
surface and white surfaces reflect poorly. [gambar]

Hence, the distance between sensors and 3. The Processor

ground surface is important and it is more important
that how we put sensors near each other. The For The Smart Stretcher, PIC 16F877A was
distance between sensors and ground surface must used as processor. PIC16F877A is a good flash
be 2 to 10 mm and the distance between each microcontroller that has many features a 40-pin DIP
sensor is dependent on the line width. [1] package. This flash microcontroller may be
programmed and erased instantly, without the need
The Smart Stretcher used four sensors and for a UV light source, to speed program testing.
they have suitable distance by each other as can be Reprogram ability offer a highly flexible solution
seen in Fig. 3 and line width was 18 mm. today’s ever-changing market demands, where
product updates and modifications are routinely
carried out in the field.

.
Sender
4. The driver

Receiver Robot needs a driver IC controlling and giving

power to the motors. The microcontroller sends a
signal to the driver which acts as a switch. The
microcontroller only sends a signla to the switch
[gambar]
and then the switch must gives required voltage to
If the line width is thin, the distance the motors. If the received signal by the driver is
between sensors must be reduced; otherwise, while high, it will rotate the motors.
curving the line, the robot will not be turned on
A good motor driver is IC l298 which can be
time.
used to control two motors. It is an integrated
2. The ADC and sensor circuit monolithic circuit in 15-lead Multiwatt and Power
SO20 packages. It is a high-voltage, high-current
Generally, the received signals from the dual full-bridge driver inductive loads such as
sensors are analog and must be converted to the relays, solenoids, DC, and stepping motors. Two
digital form. Therefore, the circuit can be designed enable inputs provided enable or disable the device
to send the sensors signals to the processor, independently of the input signals. L298 has 2
directly. Hence, the processing time can be amperes per channel current capacity and it can
managed just by using an external ADC. LM324 is support up to 45 volts for outputting. Moreover,
good ADC that we have used in our project. Two L298 works happily up to 16 volts without any heat
LM324 can support eight sensors. sink.

The resistance of the receiver sensor is

decreased when infrared is radiated on it.

A good sensor will have near zero

resistance in the presence of the ray and have a very
large resistance in the absence of the ray. We can
use the properly to form a potential divider. [2]
 front of the robot as a passive caster. Like Fig. 6
which can be seen in below.

[gambar]

F. The Chassis and Body

There are some good materials for

designing robots such as wood, plastic, aluminium
and brass alloys. The resistance, weight and
mechanical ability must estimate in calculation for
choosing one of them.

In this project, aluminium has been used

for chassis because of its lightweight and being
[gambar]
strong enough for our project.
The microcontroller sends instructions to the
All component can be installed on the
driver after processing the data coming from
circuit fiber to decrease the weight. Motors can be
sensors part. The driver gives positive voltage to
fixed under the fiber and other segments can be
one of the motor pins and gives negative voltage to
installed on the fiber. The appearance of robot,
another one which there is five states:
definitely, is not important. It is noted that the
1. Both of the motors are turn on and perfomance is much more important than other
rotate forward simultaneously. (move things..
forward)
III. PROGRAMMING
2. The right motor is turn on and the left
motor is turn off. (move left) Every microcontroller has own special
3. The left motor is turn on and the right compiler which can write program with the
motor is turn right. (move right) language C or Basic for them. After compiling, it
4. Both of the motors are turn on and must be send the compiled program to the
rotate backward simultaneously. microcontroller with programmer. A programmer is
(move backward) a device that can be connected with a computer and
5. Both of the motors are turn off (stop) we must put the microcontroller on the programmer
 Usually two states are not and then the programmer sends the program into
practical in this Smart Stretcher: the microcontroller’s ROM.
1. Both of the motors are
turn off. A program has been written for Smart
2. Both of them rotate Stretcher with the language C in Codevision and the
backward. summary of the program has been shown below. In
this project, we use “PIC 16F877A” that has three
E. The Actuators (Motors and wheels)
I/O ports. Port A, Port B and port C have been
The movement systems is an important used for inputs and outputs, respectively. The data
part of a robot and its objective is how to move the perform from sensors after Analog to Digital
robot from one point to another point. There are Converting will sends to the microcontroller in port
many kinds of motors and wheels. Choice is A and after processing with microcontroller the
dependent on the Smart Stretcher function, power, instruction will send to the driver from port B.
speed,grip and precision.
For writing the program for this Smart
Actually, it is better to use gearbox motors Stretcher, port A’s pins and port B’s pins are
instead of common DC motors because it has gears assume as a name of ports. The pin was renamed in
and an axle and its speed does not change towards this project.
the top of a hill or downhill.That the more speed is,
The speed of the motors can be easily
the less precision will be; thus it is better to choose
adjusted by using PWM pulses fed to the motor
a motor that has authentuc RPM. Smart Stretcher
through the Enable Pins of the driver. Each channel
used two DC gearbox motors.
has its own independent Enable Pin; therfore the
The Smart Stretcher use four wheel.. Two speed of each motor can be controlled easily. a
of them are joined to the motors and installed rear variable vooltage DC power source to controlling
the robot and the other wheel is free and installed the speed of a DC motor needs. When 11 volts
plugged to the motor and switch on the power to it,
the motor will start to speed up. The motors do not
respond immediately so it will take a small time to
reaches full power ON and OFF enough quickly,
the motor will run at some speed between zero and
full speed. This is exactly what a PWM controller
does; it switches the motor on it a series of pulses.

[programming]

IV. SOME LINE FOLLOWER’S PATH

The designed robot has eight infrared

sensors on the bottom for detect line.
Microcontroller PIC 16F877A and driver L298
were used to control direction and speed of motors.
The robot is controlled by the microcontroller.

In performs change the motor direction by

giving signal to driver IC according to receive
signals from sensors.

REFERENCES

1. J. F. Dupuis and M. Parizeau. “Evolving a

Vision-Based Line-Following Robot
Controller”. IEEE Conference On
Computer and Robot vision.
2. Robert L.Boylestad and Louis Nashelsky
( 2002 ). “Electronic Devices and Circuit
Theory “8th ed. Prentice Hall International
Editions.
3. Muhammad Ali Mazidi, Rolin D.
McKinlay and Danny Causey. “PIC
Microcontroller and Embedded Systems”.
Pearson Prentice Hall.
4. Matthias, O.,“Robotics and Autonomous
Systems, Volume 30, Issues 1-2, 31
January 2000.
5. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasonic_se
nsor, January 4, 2010.
6. Farida Mona Mazhanash, “ Mobile Robot
Navigation Using Infrared Sensor”,
2093 2007/B-007, FKEE, UTHM, 2007.
7. Firdaus bin Bachok @ Embok Walang, “
Obstacle Avoidance Robot Algorithm”,
BEE, UTEM, 2006
8. http://www.active-
robots.com/products/robots/maze-details-
1.shtml
9. http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheet/
SGSThomsonMicroelectronics/mXyzuxsr.
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