ADBU Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (AJEEE) | Volume 1, Issue 1 | May 2017

Bluetooth Controlled Metal Detector Robot

Ananya Bhattacharyya

Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Assam Don Bosco University,

Airport Road, Azara, Guwahati -781017, Assam, INDIA.
ananyabhatta@gmail.com

Abstract: This paper presents a new type of robot that uses a metal detector sensor to
detect metallic object passing over the metal detector. The robotic vehicle is controlled using
android application for metal detection operation controlled with the help of Bluetooth
technology. This project can be widely used because of its simplicity and ability to modify to
meet changes of needs. Based on experimental studies, it was found that the mobile
controlled robot can move in any direction as per the desired instruction and the beeper in
the metal detector circuit beeps whenever it encounters any metallic object.

Keywords: Arduino UNO, Bluetooth Module HC-05, Metal Detector, Motor Driver,
Android Application

1. Introduction unit, we describe what kind of microcontroller we

use. While in the software section, we explain the
In today’s modern environment, almost everybody algorithm that we use in making the android
uses smartphones, which are a part of their day-to- application and metal detector.
day life. This project was about robotic movement
control through smartphones. Many researchers [1] A simple block diagram is shown in Figure 1
have developed such robotic movement control below.
system using smartphones. Here, we aim to make a
robot and to connect the metal detector circuit to it.

Here, a dedicated application has been

created to control robotic hardware, which controls
the movement of the robot. The embedded
hardware has been developed on ATmega328P
microcontroller and controlled by an Android
smartphone. This controller receives the commands
from the Android phone, takes the data and
controls the motors of the robot by the motor driver
L293D. The robot can able to move forward,
backward, left and right movements. The
Smartphone is been interfaced to the device by
using Bluetooth. A Bluetooth device HC-05 Figure 1: Working Sections in this work
module was used with Arduino UNO to receive
commands from the smartphone. A metal detector 3. Hardware Design
circuit was connected to the robot to detect the
metal. A beep sound was made when it detected the Hardware design consists of the Bluetooth
metal. controlled robot and the metal detector circuit. In
this work, we utilized the components to build a
2. Methodology configurability robot to reach our goal.

This work is divided into two sections- hardware The circuit for Bluetooth controlled metal
and software. Hardware section contains robot detector robotic car is shown in Figure 2. The
making, metal detector, and control unit. In the Motor driver is connected to Arduino to run the car.
hardware section, we explain the working of Motor driver’s input pins 2,7,10 and 15, are
Arduino and DC motors and how the robot utilizes connected to Arduino digital pin numbers 12, 11,
them to detect the metallic obstacles. In the section 10 and 9 respectively. Here we have used two DC
of the metal detector, we describe general motors to drive a car in which one motor is
information about kind of metal detector and connected at t h e output pin of motor driver- 3
working principles. In the section of the control and 6; and another motor is connected to pins- 11

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Figure 2: Robotic Vehicle Circuit using Arduino UNO

and 14. A 9V battery is also used to power the The circuit for the metal detector circuit is
motor driver for driving motors. The Rx pin of the shown in Figure 3, whose working is as follows.
Bluetooth module is connected to a voltage divider.
From the voltage divider, one end is connected to Here the circuit is divided into three parts,
the Tx pin of the Arduino and the other end is an astable multivibrator, an LC circuit, and a
connected to the ground (GND) pin of the Arduino. comparator circuit. In the first stage i.e., the astable
Then the Tx pin of the module is connected to the multivibrator circuit (using NE 555 IC), by giving a
Rx pin of the Arduino. supply to the circuit it produces a frequency (say f1)
and this frequency is fixed by adjusting the variable
3.1 Robotic vehicle circuit resistor R1 and R2 which are of the value 2K and
25K respectively. It produces a square wave at the
The robotic vehicle consists of Arduino UNO, output pin (i.e. pin 3) of the IC and is adjusted to
Bluetooth Module HC-05, Metal Detector, Motor give a frequency of 0.7 MHz.
Driver and two DC Motors. The Vcc and ground
pin of Bluetooth module is connected to 3.3V and In the second stage is the LC circuit. The
ground of Arduino. A 9V battery is also used for inductance (L) here is a copper coil. When a metal
power the circuit at Arduino Vin pin. is kept near to the coil, the electromagnetic field in
the coil is disturbed which produces a frequency
3.1 Metal detector (say f2). The frequencies f1 and f2 meet at a
junction. If frequency f1 is greater or lesser then f2,
In this work, we mainly depend on a metal it produces a voltage V, the voltage flows through
detector, because we need to decide the object is the diodes. The negative voltage flows through
metallic or non-metallic. A metal detector device diode D1, which is in reverse bias that is connected
detects the presence of metal nearby. It takes to the ground and it gets neutralize here. Whereas,
advantage of the electric and magnetic properties of the positive voltage flows through diode D2 which
metals (Eddy currents) to detect metals [2]. is in forward bias. The capacitor C5 reduces the

Figure 3: Robotic Vehicle Circuit using Arduino UNO

Bhattacharya, AJEEE, ISSN: 2582-0257, Vol. 1, Issue 1, May 2017, pp. 1-5 | Page | 2
ADBU Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (AJEEE) | www.tinyurl.com/ajeee-adbu

ripples in the voltage. Whenever the voltage flows 4. Software Design

through diode D3, if there is any negative voltage,
it will be blocked by the diode and only positive In this section, algorithms used in making the
voltage is allowed to pass which then flows to the android application and metal detection, have been
NPN transistor. The transistor will be switched ON briefly explained. Here, we utilized the advantages
and a positive voltage will flow through diode D4; of an Android smartphone. The software
and then a positive voltage will flow to the pin 2 of components have been described with more details.
the op-amp in the comparator circuit, which is in
inverting mode. Here a variable resistor is 4.1 Algorithm
connected to pin 3 of the op-amp, which sets the
reference voltage of the comparator circuit. Here The general algorithm has the main steps to
the voltage at pin 2 will be lower than the reference accomplish the general tasks, which are “start”,
voltage at pin 3, so the output at pin 6 (output pin) “stop” and “detection of metal”. The program will
will be high and a voltage from the op-amp will begin with the “start” step where the Bluetooth
flow to diode D5 and then to the buzzer and the module HC-05 connected to Arduino Uno will pair
buzzer will beep. with the android application. The robot moves as
per the instruction, given by the Android
However, when there is no metal near the Application. During this step, the robot moves and
coil, frequency f1 will be equal to f2, the voltage the metal detector checks if the object is a metallic
produced at the junction will be zero, and hence object or not through passing it over the metal
there will be no voltage flowing across the circuit. detector. In case, if a metallic object is countered
The input at pin 2 will be more than the reference by the metal detector, a beep sound will be
voltage, so the output will be low, therefore the produced by the beeper and the movement of the
buzzer will not beep. robot can be stopped. Otherwise, the robot will
travel until it finds any metallic object, or else the
3.3 Control Units (Arduino UNO, movement robot can be stopped.
ATmega328P Microcontroller)
4.2 Android Application
The Arduino Uno is the main hardware control
unit, which is a microcontroller board and is based Android is a very familiar word in today’s world.
on the ATmega328P. It has 14 digital input/output Millions of devices are running on Android OS and
pins, 6 analog inputs, a 16 MHz quartz crystal, a millions are being developed every day [4]. App
USB connection, a power jack, an ICSP header and Inventor is an application originally provided by
a reset button [3]. It contains everything that is Google and now maintained by the Massachusetts
needed to support the microcontroller; simply it Institute of Technology (MIT). It allows anyone to
needs to be connected to a computer with a USB create software applications for the Android
cable or power it with an AC-to-DC adapter or Operating System (OS). It uses a graphical
battery, to get started. interface that allows users to create an application

Figure 4: App Inventor Designer

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ADBU Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering (AJEEE) | www.tinyurl.com/ajeee-adbu

Figure 5: Apps Inventor Block Editor

that can run on the Android system, which runs on ATmega328P microcontroller is used in this
many Android phones [5]. project as a control device.

The first phase of application design goes Remote operation is achieved by any
through the App Inventor Designer, which is smartphone with Android OS, upon a GUI
accessible through the web page. The left side of (Graphical User Interface) based touch screen
the window consists of ingredients like a screen, operation. We used the HC-05 module to pair the
buttons, text boxes, images, labels and many more Android application to the robot. The motors are
and the right side of the designer allows users to interfaced to the control unit through motor driver
view the screen and components added to the L293D IC. An extra metal detector circuit is
screen. connected to the robot to detect the metal
efficiently.
In this app development, the App
Inventor provides a versatile opportunity to 6. Conclusion and future scope
develop a customized application that starts with
establishing a Bluetooth connection by searching This project presents a metal detecting robot using
the available Bluetooth devices and make pair with Bluetooth communication with Bluetooth module
them. For robotic movement, a character is HC-05. The robot is moved in a particular direction
assigned for each operation such as Forward-“F”, with the help of Bluetooth technology, controlled
Backward-“B”, Left-“L” and Right-“R”. by our mobile. Experimental work has been carried
out successfully. The result shows that higher
4.3 Detection efficiency is achieved using the embedded system.
This proposed method is verified to be highly
This task completely depends on the metal beneficial for many purposes [6]. The metal
detector. Whenever the metal detector comes detector worked at a constant speed without any
across and metal, it detects the metal by making a problem. In this project, we also achieved wireless
beep sound. communication between the robot and the Android
application.
5. Operation of the System
This project can be further developed by
The project is designed to control a metal detector enhancing the performance and by adding more
robotic vehicle using an android application. features. Further developments in this project can
Bluetooth device is interfaced to the control unit be an addition of features like the addition of a gas
for sensing the signals that are transmitted by the sensor, connecting robotic arms for pick and place
android application. This data is conveyed to the purposes etc.
control unit, which moves the robot. An

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