How to Make Floor Cleaning Robot Powered by Arduino

Hey there welcome again to my interesting instructable, In this project i made a floor cleaner robot that is powered by arduino and is way to less noisy compared to the actual ones.

Yeah you heard it right, This is a simple yet fully working dry floor cleaner that can pick up objects from the floor like bits of paper, Hair, foam pieces, leftovers pieces of chips from the party and so on!

I have made this using components that are available to anyone easily, if you planning to build this project i have given all the sources of information step by step in this instructables so that anybody could build and have fun.

How this robot works?

The logic behind working of this robot is simple, The Board is programmed in such a way that when the circuit is turned on the robot moves front and the hc-sr04 sensor scans for any obstacles.

If it detects any obstacles, The robot stops moving and the wheels start to run in reverse and then resume to move forward in other direction.

Again it will keep moving till it detects other obstacle in its path, Meanwhile by this method most of the areas of the floor will be covered.

During this entire process the fan will be on meaning it will keep on gulping all the particles that are left on the floor

Now to clean the picked-up objects all you have to do is lift the robot, place it below dustbin and turn of the fan, all the objects will drop automatically.

Here is the list of materials that you will need to make this project.

• Arduino Uno from amazon
• Ultrasonic Sensor (HC-SR04)
• L298N Motor Driver Module
• DC fan, switch and battery source to run this
• Strong Cardboard
• Two BO Motors with wheels
• Two 18650 Batteries
• Battery Holder with Separate Switch
• Jumper Wires
• Paper glue
• Plastic wire mesh
• Spare wheel
• Piece of steel or toothpick
• Super glue and hot glue
• Soldering iron and wire
• Arduino IDE and programming cable

Note that with these amazon affiliate links i may earn a small percentage on successful sales at no extra cost to you, This will help to support my projects

This is an important part of our project as it holds all the electronics and the mechanism, You may think why am i using cardboard instead of other materials like wood?

The answer is simple, Like you think cardboard is weak indeed it is not true in this case.

I'm using a cardboard that was recycled from a package container and to make extra sure about the strength i used 2 pieces that were joined together with paper glue.

Even though one layer would provide good strength i didn't want to take a chance!

I made discs of 2 cardboard and later cut it using paper scissors, These individual pieces were later glued with paper glue and allowed to dry completely, Once this portion was complete i marked the area where the fan would be sitting and also made space for the wheels.

You can see the measurements that i used and follow the same if not you will have to spend some extra time to get everything right on the first place.

After you cut along the marked areas our base is ready for use and we will head over to next steps to add components here.

To make the circuit understandable for everyone i will give a step by step explanation for each component

There are 4 main parts Ultrasonic sensor,Uno, Motor driver and the Fan part

Ultrasonic Sensor or HC-SR04

• VCC to 5V on Arduino
• GND to GND on Arduino
• Trig to Pin 8 on Arduino
• Echo to Pin 9 on Arduino

Arduino uno connection with motor driver and battery

• The Vin pin is connected to 5v pin of the driver
• Gnd to Gnd of driver
• 12v pin to positive pin of driver

L298N Motor Driver connections with Uno

• IN1 (in21) to D4 on Arduino
• IN2 (in22) to D5
• IN3 (in23) to D6
• IN4 (in24) to D7
• ENA (enA) to D10 and ENB to pin D11
• GND to GND on Arduino
• VCC to Battery positive
• Motor 1 Outputs to Motor 1
• Motor 2 Outputs to Motor 2 Terminals

Fan

• The DC fan that we are using needs 12v to operate at its maximum power
• Since I'm using the fan directly without any speed controller i will be using a 7.4V battery source
• To make a connection all you have to do is connect the battery to the DC fan and to control the on and off add a simple on and off switch

This completes the circuit part, Now connect the USB to arduino and open ide, Copy and paste the below code and click on upload.

After the code is done uploading disconnect the USB from the board and proceed with the next step.

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After we have the frame ready i will begin with FAN part, This DC fan uses brushless motor and is very fast so there should not be any obstacles in its path.

To ensure this i have made hole on the frame that is slightly larger than the size of fan, Use glue to attach the fan body to the frame and seal if any excess holes are in the fan body.

For the movement talking about the back side we have 2 BO motor that control the front, back, left and right movements.

There is no chance this robot will be steady with 2 wheels so we need additional wheel, Instead of making this robot more and more complex i decided to use a simple wheel that is installed on the front part.

I had a wheel to which i added toothpick in between to move smoothly. The ends of this stick were coupled with superglue followed by hot glue.

One thing that you need to keep in mind that whenever you are working with the circuit fix it firmly to the base this is because when we are handling with more circuit connection the chances of missing one or more connections is more common and searching for that missing connection will cost you some time.

In my project i made the size of frame in such a way that everything will fit as needed, I will glue the electronics first, use double sided adhesives for arduino uno.

Now add the BO motors to the base and glue it using the hot glue, make sure that glue is not too hot this may disfigure the frame of motor.

Add the wheels to the shaft of motor and repeat the same for other side too

In the bottom part i will add the power source for the fan, You can see that i have connected 2 batteries in series and connected to fan via switch and it is secured with a zip tie.

This is the important part in collecting the objects from the ground, You may be thinking why this is so easy looking and how the objects will be collected?

Like i said earlier the DC fan is powerful enough to gulp all the lightweight material from the floor and as soo as it picks up the object is airborne, Now we need something that will keep the object somewhere.

This will be taken care by a plastic mesh with many holes that filter out the objects and allow the normal flow of air hence do not disturn the function of the DC fan

I made a cylinder with cardboard and sealed one end with the mesh and the other end was glued to the frame using hot glue

After you have done all the steps make sure all the parts are intact on the frame and there are no loose wires, This is because the robot car undergoes lots of movements when its working.

Plug in the battery to the case, First turn on the suction fan switch and then the main circuit switch.

At the time of testing on my studio i placed hand in front of the sensor and the car moves back, so on its way i placed some bits of paper, If you have made everything like i did the bits of paper will be swallowed by the fan.

And yeah! the project is finally working like it used to be, You can try dropping some light weight objects like pieces of foam or hair and see the magic of this robot.

Thanks to the large capacity battery used in both the circuit and the fan it gives a great backup so you can trust this robot to clean away most of the mess on the floor

Note that this robot can pick only light objects and no liquids or larger size objects can be picked!

Feeling like you are missing something? Yes you are!

Watch this working video of this robot floor cleaner in action you will be amazed for sure, Also there is a detailed video tutorial of this project.

I understand there is a lot of room for improvements in this project which in future i will be doing to this project, If you have any questions let me know you can ask me in the comments, Thank you and happy building.