ROBOTIC SHELF STOCK MONITORING SYSTEM
byDnyanesh DeoFeroz ChaodhriRaja Chowdhury
project guideMr. Gopalkrishnan Naraynan
The Problem
• Reduced sales despite that product being in the stock.
• Unnecessary stock piles up even before the current stock has depleted.
• Problem in the area of big parking lots.
Our Application
• An autonomous robot that will roam in the mall along a line.
• Monitor shelves for stock content through image processing in LABVIEW.
• For empty or near empty shelves, it will send a message to the control room to fill the stock.
• To analyze empty slots for available parking slots.
Project Description
• Application consists of a line follower robot.
• USB camera is mounted on two bars
• Robot is made using a aluminium frame.
• Line follower will handle the horizontal movement of the robot or camera.
• USB camera will give the view of the shelf.
• Camera is mounted on a pulley system.
• Pulley system consists of simple motor and support from bars.
• Pulley system will handle the vertical movement of the robot or camera.
• Photoelectric Proximity sensors for crowd detection.
• Images acquired by USB camera will be processed using LabVIEW
Mechanical Model
Camera mounting
Supporting platform
Base
Motor
Line Follower
• Follows black line on white surface.
• Four wheel drive.
• Speed control by motor driver.
• Hardware for Line follower Robot-
1. Arduino Board.2. 12V DC motors.3. Wheels.4. IR Sensors.5. H-Bridge Motor Drivers.6.12V lead acid battery
H - Bridge
An H bridge is an electronic circuit that enables a voltage to be applied across a load in either direction. These circuits are often used in robotics and other applications to allow DC motors to run forwards and backwards.
Other hardware required is -1. USB Camera for image acquisition
2. Motor in pulley system
3. Photoelectric Proximity Switch
Software needed -
● Arduino IDE● LabVIEW
What We Have Tried§ H – Bridge IC L298§ H – Bridge IC A3940KLWT with Power Mosfet§ H – Bridge IC MC33886 (Working)§ IR Sensor (Working but NO proper mounting)§ Photo-electric Sensor§ Photo-electric Switch (Working)§ RF module for wireless communication (Working only one way)
Hurdles§ SOLVED1. Camera Mounting2. Finding appropriate Motor Driver3. Photo-electric Switch for Line Following
§ UNSOLVED1. Compact chassis (For proper Line Following)2. Tire Grip3. Four Wheel Drive Or Two Wheel Drive4. Battery Life
LabVIEW
• Vision Acquisition and Vision Assistant Module.
• OCR/OCV pattern recognition feature.
• Symbols detection in region of interest.
• Status of shelf will be calculated on the basis of the number of symbols detected.
● For communication between robot and control room.
● TCP/IP communication using UDP Multicast.● Hosting LAN● In case of emergencies StockEye can be
controlled from Control Room
What We Have Tried§ IMAGE PROCESSING1. Edge Detection2. Pattern Matching3. Thresholding, Segmentation4. OCR/OCV (Working)
§ Line Following1. Hough Transform2. Edge Detection
§ COMMUNICATION
1. NI VISA Serial Module2. Arduino LIFA Module3. TCP/IP VI (by hosting LAN)
Hurdles§ SOLVED1. Image Processing2. Communication (From StockEye to Control Room)
§ UNSOLVED1. Color Image Processing (Appropriate Camera with Auto Focus)2. Two way communication3. Distance of Camera from Shelf