An autonomous robot that will roam in malls and will scan product shelves and record its status (whether empty or not) using arduino microcontroller and labview software.

1. ROBOTIC SHELF STOCK
MONITORING SYSTEM
by
Dnyanesh Deo
Feroz Chaodhri
Raja Chowdhury
project guide
Mr. Gopalkrishnan Naraynan

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. • 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

6. Mechanical Model
Camera mounting
Supporting platform
Base
Motor

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Other hardware required is -
1. USB Camera for image acquisition
2. Motor in pulley system
3. Photoelectric Proximity Switch
Software needed -
● Arduino IDE
● LabVIEW

10. 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)

11. Hurdles
§ SOLVED
1. Camera Mounting
2. Finding appropriate Motor Driver
3. Photo-electric Switch for Line Following
§ UNSOLVED
1. Compact chassis (For proper Line Following)
2. Tire Grip
3. Four Wheel Drive Or Two Wheel Drive
4. Battery Life

12. 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.

13. ● 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

14. What We Have Tried
§ IMAGE PROCESSING
1. Edge Detection
2. Pattern Matching
3. Thresholding, Segmentation
4. OCR/OCV (Working)
§ Line Following
1. Hough Transform
2. Edge Detection

15. § COMMUNICATION
1. NI VISA Serial Module
2. Arduino LIFA Module
3. TCP/IP VI (by hosting LAN)

16. Hurdles
§ SOLVED
1. Image Processing
2. Communication (From StockEye to Control Room)
§ UNSOLVED
1. Color Image Processing (Appropriate Camera with Auto Focus)
2. Two way communication
3. Distance of Camera from Shelf