Maze solving Algorithm for line following robot and derivation of linear path distance from nonlinear path
This work addresses path planning and error correction for line-following robots in maze-solving tasks, representing an incremental improvement in robotics and automation.
The paper tackles the problem of solving line mazes with robots by proposing a general algorithm for exploration and mapping, using a coordinate system and Dijkstra's algorithm to find shortest paths, and derives equations to correct errors in linear distance measurements from wheel encoders due to non-linear robot movement, achieving almost exact distances.
In this paper we have discussed a unique general algorithm for exploring and solving any kind of line maze with another simple one for simple mazes without loops or loops having highest two branches none of which are inward. For the general algorithm, we need a method to map the whole maze, which is required if the maze is complex. The proposed maze mapping system is based on coordinate system and after mapping the whole maze as a graph in standard 'Adjacency-list representation' method, shortest path and shortest time path was extracted using Dijkstra's algorithm. In order to find the coordinates of the turning points and junctions, linear distance between the points are needed, for which wheel encoder was used. However, due to non-linear movement of robot, the directly measured distance from the encoder has some error and to remove this error an idea is built up which ended by deriving equations that gives us almost exact linear distance between two points from the reading of wheel encoder of the robot moving in a non-linear path.