Stepper Motor for simple wall following robot

[kieron]

Hi I need some help to understand the usage of stepper motor and how shall I connect it to the microcontoller I am currently using Atmel@AVR microcontroller. I have got no clue about it but somehow I need to use it for developing SLAM algorithm. I am planning to compare the data from the SRF08 ultrasonic sensors and the distance travelled data from the stepper motor. The robot needs to follow the wall while mapping the environment and avoiding obstacle.

 

[amando96]

Google gave me this:
**broken link removed**
I have used it, works fine up to about 20v, and 500mA, the uln2803A chip can run up to 40v and 750mA if i'm not mistaken, it's normal ro get hot.

so instead of the serial port wires, hook up 4 pins of your micro, and make them go on and off in a sequence, the faster the sequencing, the faster it spins, obviously.
stepper motors will drain your batteries really fast though, the best option would be dc motors with gearbox and encoders.

oh, and don't hook up 4 wired steppers to that without changing the sequencing code, or your chip will burn.

 

[kieron]

Thank you for the reply. The problem with using dc motor for my project is that the data I will be getting from the encoders will not be able to determine the direction of the robot, it will only tell the distance travelled. I need to know the direction of the motion as well for developing the algorithm.

I am completely new to this field and I have just started to work with the ultrasonic sensors. Do you have any idea on how can I connect the stepper motor to the Atmel@AVR microcontroller and the 4-unit ultrasonic sensors? Is there any guidlines I can follow to start working on it? I am planning to get the Micromouse Body Set platform (Stepping motor (H546) x 2) from active robot.

 

[joemcder]

You might look into the Arduino which is wildly popular adaption of AVR. The community shares a wealth of hardware examples and software code.
I'm quite comfortable with Atmel AVR & Microchip PIC, but I find myself using Arduino more & more because of the wealth of shared information.

 

[MarkB]

A quadrant encoder will give you direction as well as distance. I agree with Joe, there is a ton of information around the Arduino. Good luck.

 

[kieron]

Thanks. At the moment, it is not possible for me to use Arduino as all the components for my project have been provided before starting the project. I need to get on with the unipolar H546 Stepper Motor and the ES1000 driver module as the link between the motor and Atmel@AVR microcontroller. Is there any way I could learn how to program it from beginning? I have found out the way to connect the motor to the driver module but i am still confused on how to connect driver to the microcontroller, I mean which pins shall be used.

 

[amando96]

What AVR are you working with?

 

[kieron]

It is ATmega32. I am pretty much done with the C code for ultrasonic sensors and now I need to program the stepper motors to be able to make the robot follow the wall.