Sorting System Based on Color Using Line Follower Robot

Zaenurrohman

, Supriyono

, Arif Sumardiono

and Erna Alimudin

Department of Electronics Engineering, Polytechnic State of Cilacap, Jl. Dr. Soetomo No. 1 Cilacap, Indonesia

Keywords: Robot, Sorting System, Line Follower, Conveyor, Color Sensor, Proximity Sensor.

Abstract: Robot is a mechanical device that can perform tasks to ease human work, both in supervision and control.

The robot is programmed with artificial intelligence in accordance with the conditions of each process of

working on its task. Robots are used by humans to do heavy, dangerous, repetitive and dirty work. Another

use is to lift or move goods without having to use human power. In this study, a color sorting system was

created which aims to make it easier to carry objects and sort colour. In terms of transporting objects, a line

follower robot is used which will automatically deliver the objects to the conveyor. after arriving at the

conveyor the goods will be sorted based on the color of the goods. The line follower robot based on the test

results can bring each item to the conveyor with an average time of 14.20 seconds and return to its original

place in 32.30 seconds. On the conveyor the TCS 3200 color sensor can read the color of the goods according

to the input data from the TCS 3200 sensor. The colors of the goods used in the test are red, green and blue.

After the color of the goods is detected, the servo will automatically sort the goods according to the color in

each prepared container.

1 INTRODUCTION

Industrial needs in terms of machines always increase

every year along with increasing industrial

performance in Indonesia. (Herlambang, Purba, &

Jaqin, 2021) Today's modern technology, especially

in the world of robot technology, has experienced

very rapid development. Robot technology in

Indonesia is not only mechanical sophistication but

also in its control system that uses computerization.

(Budiharto, Irwansyah, Suroso, & Gunawan, 2020)

Robots are also defined as having artificial

intelligence that can overcome problems to replace

humans when working in hazardous areas, repetitive

work, and dirty. (Nahavandi, 2019) The manufacture

of robots with special features is closely related to the

modern industrial world which demands a tool that

has high capabilities that can complete human work.

(Chen, 2017) Goods delivery robots to lift heavy

goods are also very necessary in industry, usually to

automatically transport goods to aircraft cargo.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0560-0729

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6347-7680

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4700-0895

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3788-0676

(Karabegović, Karabegović, Mahmić, & Husak,

2015)

A mobile robot is a robot that uses propulsion in

the form of legs or wheels that can move from one

point to another. (Lauria et al., 2006)Mobile robots

can be applied in several applications, one of which

is grouping goods and object followers. (Larasati,

Dewi, & Oktarina, 2017) To overcome this problem,

research was conducted on the incorporation of

delivery robots using line followers and conveyors to

detect and separate types of goods based on color.

2 METHODS

The design of the system was made before creating

the robot. It was made to ensure that the system can

run properly and in accordance with its function. The

design of the system includes the design of hardware

and software. Figure 1 is a line follower robot system

using a close loop system. This robot uses a servo as

a gripper which is used to move goods.

188

Zaenurrohman, ., Supriyono, ., Sumardiono, A. and Alimudin, E.

Sorting System Based on Color Using Line Follower Robot.

DOI: 10.5220/0011739300003575

In Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science (iCAST-ES 2022), pages 188-193

ISBN: 978-989-758-619-4; ISSN: 2975-8246

Figure 1: Block diagram of line follower robot.

Figure 1 is a line follower robot system using a close

loop system. The use of line sensors using infrared

will follow the line in delivering goods. Infrared is

placed on the front right and front left side of the

robot. It aims to have an inverse relationship between

the resistance of the infrared sensor. On a white

surface the amount of light refracted by the IR sensor

is very high and its resistance increases when the

robot follows a line on a black line. (Tayal, Rao,

Bhardwaj, & Aggarwal, 2020) Each surface has the

ability to reflect light differently. White has the ability

to reflect lighter. On the other hand, dark colors have

the ability to reflect less light. (Latif, Widodo, Rahim,

& Kunal, 2020).

Line followers use 3 IR sensors on the robot to

make it more accurate. the sensor that is being placed

on the black line, when turning to the left, the sensor

on the left side will be on the black line so the motor

on the left will stop. The right motor will keep moving

so the robot will turn right so that it will return to the

right track. (Geetha, Salvi, Saini, Yadav, & Singh

Tomar, 2021) The workflow of the motor system can

be seen in Figure 2.

This system using several sensors, i.e. photodiode

sensor and infrared sensor. The photodiode sensor is

used to detect the line, thus it can be delivered

according to the path while the infrared sensor is used

in the gripper to detect the presence of objects on the

gripper. So that, when there is an object the gripper

opens and at a certain distance the gripper will close.

Flowchart of the line follower robot for carry

goods is shown in Figure 3. There are two sensors

used in the conveyor block diagram menu, namely the

Proximity sensor and the TCS 3200 sensor. The

proximity sensor detects objects while the TCS 3200

detects the color of the goods. The TC3200 sensor has

the main components, namely a photodiode and a

current-to-frequency converter. The photodiode on

the TCS3200 IC is arranged in an x 8 arrangement

which can later be arranged through the S2 and S3

sectors. Photodiode will emit a current of magnitude

proportional to the level of the basic color of the light.

Figure 2: Block diagram of line follower robot system.

Figure 3: Flowchart of the line follower robot for

carrygoods.

The current is then converted into a square signal

with a frequency proportional to the magnitude of the

current. (Riskiawan, Rizaldi, Setyohadi, & Leksono,

2017) In the block diagram of the conveyor there are

two sensors used, namely the Proximity sensor and

the TCS 3200 sensor. The proximity sensor will

detect objects while the TCS 3200 will detect the

Sorting System Based on Color Using Line Follower Robot

189

color of the goods. Flowchart of the carrier conveyor

is shown in Figure 4 and the mechanical design is

shown in Figure 5.

Figure 4: Flowchart of the Carrier conveyor.

Figure 5: Conveyor mechanical design.

Some materials in the conveyor used are acrylic,

PVC pipe, one DC motor, and one servo motor. The

roller on the conveyor uses PVC pipe, as well as a

servo motor to bring goods to a shelf or container

from the sorting results. On the line follower robot

there are two servos that are used for manipulators

that are applied to the robot. At the wheel using a dc

motor and at the front there are four photodiode

sensors. Mechanical Mechanical design of delivery

robot can be seen in Figure 6.

Figure 6: Mechanical design of delivery robot.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The TCS 3200 sensor is very sensitive to light, thus

needed a mechanic that can control the light, which

made the light intensity value does not change.

Figure 7: Value of green object detection.

When the goods pass through the TCS 3200

sensor then the resistance value will be read. And

also, when resistance value according to a certain

color, the servo will move and place the goods

according to the color. The results of testing the color

sensor of the goods are as shown in Figure 7, Figure

8, and Figure 9.

100

12345678910

Color Value

Testing Number

Value of Green Object

Detection

R G B

iCAST-ES 2022 - International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science

190

Figure 8: Value of red object detection.

Figure 9: Value of blue object detection.

The R, G., B color detection data on the object to be

moved is used as a reference for servo control in

separating goods according to their color.

3.1 Time Testing of Line Follower

Robot Bringing Goods to Conveyor

Tests are carried out to determine the time needed in

sending goods to conveyors for sorting. In the

experiment a good average time to get is 14.20

seconds. The results are shown in Table 1 and Figure

10.

Table 1: Estimated time used toward conveyor.

Estimated time used

toward conveyor

(second)

Description

1 13.98 Robot Walking Stable

2 14.48 Robot Walking Stable

3 14.33 Robot Walking Stable

4 16.90

Robot Walking

Unstable

5 15.78 Robot Walking Stable

6 15.57 Robot Walking Stable

7 16.83

Robot Walking

Unstable

8 17.54

Robot Walking

Unstable

9 13.95 Robot Walking Stable

10 19.62

Robot Walking

Unstable

Figure 10: Robot delivering goods to conveyor.

In the test, there were four times the robot was

running in an unstable state when the line follower

robot followed the line. It was because there is a

change in the intensity of light that changes and there

is a net that bends sharply so the speed of the robot

needs to adjust.

3.2 Conveyor Test with TCS 3200

Sensor and Servo Motor

Testing the rotational position of the servo motor

needs to be done to get the right angle so that it can

move according to the position of the shelf which will

be the position of the goods according to color. The

result is shown in Table 2.

100

150

200

12345678910

Color Value

Testing Number

Value of Red Object

Detection

R G B

100

12345678910

Color Value

Testing Number

Value of Blue Object

Detection

R G B

Sorting System Based on Color Using Line Follower Robot

191

Table 2: Servo Motor Position Testing.

No Servo Motor

Position

Position in Mechanical

1 180

Towards the Container 3

2 160

Unable towards the Container 3

3 140

Unable towards the Container 2

4 120

Unable towards the Container 2

5 110

Towards the Container 2

6 100

Interrupted towards the Container 2

7 80

Unable towards the Container 2

8 60

Unable towards the Container 1

iCAST-ES 2022 - International Conference on Applied Science and Technology on Engineering Science

192

Table 2: Servo Motor Position Testing. (cont.)

9 40

Towards the Container 1

Based on the test results in Table 2, conclude that

the appropriate servo position so that the goods can go

every receptacle prepared without any obstructions are

position 40 degree for the first container, position 110

degree for the second container and position 180

degree for the third container.

3.3 Test Sort Items by Color

Table 3 showt test sort items by color. There are errors

in the red color sorting twice and the green color 2

times while the blue color is 100% running well.

Table 3: Testing of Color Sorting Results.

No Red Green Blue

Towards

Well

Towards

Well

Towards

Well

Yes No Yes No Yes No

1 √ √ √

2 √ √ √

3 √ √ √

4 √ √ √

5 √ √ √

6 √ √ √

7 √ √ √

8 √ √ √

9 √ √ √

10 √ √ √

4 CONCLUSION

The results of this study found that the delivery of

goods using a line follower robot still has interference

from the interference of changes in light intensity.

The use of a line follower robot should only be done

in a room with a fixed light intensity. The winding

road can also slow down the time for the line follower

robot to deliver goods. In the delivery goods the

fastest time obtained is 14.20 seconds. In the sorting

goods the system can work well, the goods that are

sorted can be placed accordingly.

REFERENCES

Budiharto, W., Irwansyah, E., Suroso, J. S., & Gunawan, A.

A. S. (2020). Design of object tracking for military

robot using PID controller and computer vision. ICIC

Express Letters, 14(3), 289–294.

Chen, Y. (2017). Integrated and intelligent manufacturing:

perspectives and enablers. Engineering, 3(5), 588–595.

Geetha, V., Salvi, S., Saini, G., Yadav, N., & Singh Tomar,

R. P. (2021). Follow me: A human following robot

using wi-fi received signal strength indicator. In ICT

Systems and Sustainability (pp. 585–593). Springer.

Herlambang, H., Purba, H. H., & Jaqin, C. (2021).

Development of machine vision to increase the level of

automation in indonesia electronic component industry.

Journal Europeen Des Systemes Automatises, 54(2),

253–262. https://doi.org/10.18280/JESA.540207

Karabegović, I., Karabegović, E., Mahmić, M., & Husak,

E. (2015). The application of service robots for logistics

in manufacturing processes. Advances in Production

Engineering \& Management, 10(4).

Larasati, N., Dewi, T., & Oktarina, Y. (2017). Object

following design for a mobile robot using neural

network. Computer Engineering and Applications

Journal, 6(1), 5–14.

Latif, A., Widodo, H. A., Rahim, R., & Kunal, K. (2020).

Implementation of line follower robot based

microcontroller atmega32a. Journal of Robotics and

Control (JRC), 1(3), 70–74. https://doi.org/10.

18196/jrc.1316

Lauria, M., Nadeau, I., Lepage, P., Morin, Y., Giguère, P.,

Gagnon, F., … Michaud, F. (2006). Design and control

of a four steered wheeled mobile robot. In IECON

2006-32nd Annual Conference on IEEE Industrial

Electronics (pp. 4020–4025).

Nahavandi, S. (2019). Industry 5.0—A human-centric

solution. Sustainability, 11(16), 4371.

Riskiawan, H. Y., Rizaldi, T., Setyohadi, D. P. S., &

Leksono, T. (2017). Nitrogen (N) fertilizer measuring

instrument on maize-based plant microcontroller.

International Conference on Electrical Engineering,

Computer Science and Informatics (EECSI), 2017-

December(September), 19–21. https://doi.org/10.

1109/EECSI.2017.8239080

Tayal, S., Rao, H. P. G., Bhardwaj, S., & Aggarwal, H.

(2020). Line follower robot: design and hardware

application. In 2020 8th International Conference on

Reliability, Infocom Technologies and Optimization

(Trends and Future Directions)(ICRITO) (pp. 10–13).

Sorting System Based on Color Using Line Follower Robot

193