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J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:6376

DOI 10.1007/s10846-015-0227-x

Andruino-A1: Low-Cost Educational Mobile Robot Based

on Android and ArduinoFrancisco M. Lopez-Rodrguez Federico Cuesta

Received: 12 July 2014 / Accepted: 26 March 2015 / Published online: 3 May 2015

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

Abstract This work presents the design of an open

educational low-cost (35 euros) modular and extend-

able mobile robot based on Android and Arduino, with

Local Area Network (LAN) and Internet connection

capabilities, to be used as an educational tool in labs

and classrooms of information and communications

technology (ICT) vocational training, or in engineer-

ing courses, as well as in e-learning or massive open

online courses (MOOC) as an alternative or comple-

mentary to virtual labs. It is a first step introducing

what we call BYOR: Bring Your Own Robot edu-cation policy equivalent to BYOD: Bring your own

devices in computers world.

Keywords Educational robotRobotics

Smartphone-based robots BYORAndroid

ArduinoDistance learning.

F. M. Lopez-Rodrguez ()

Departamento Informatica, IES Triana, Junta de Andaluca,

Calle San Jacinto 79, E-41010 Seville, Spain

e-mail: [email protected]

F. Cuesta

Escuela Tecnica Superior de Ingeniera,

University of Seville, Camino de los Descubrimientos,

E-41092 Seville, Spain

e-mail:[email protected]

1 Introduction

Robots are becoming a popular educational tool

[13], in areas of science and technology for pri-

mary and secondary school and in several areas

of engineering in universities, as a method of

active learning that permits several subjects, such

as maths, computer science, mechanics, technol-

ogy, electronics, programming, artificial intelligence,

and computer vision among others, to be com-

bined as a single subject with a distinct goal.Furthermore, robotics increases collaboration and

working group skills, and helps students construct

their own knowledge based on the practical proce-

dures, according to constructivist learning paradigms.

This increase in educational robotics has been rein-

forced by the emergence of robotics competitions

[46].

Information and communications technology (ICT)

vocational education for adults (VET), which is

attended by adult students who finished high-school

or intermediate vocational education, as an alterna-tive to University, or by people who are unemployed

in order to acquire new skills as a way back to the

labor market, may be classified as technical teach-

ing founded on procedural knowledge, mainly by the

knowledge exercised in the performance of some task

in order to acquire the capabilities defined in the

degree. According to this orientation, the construc-

tion and programming of robots would be a task

that procedurally integrated several ICT skill areas
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

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64 J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:6376

required of the VET curriculum, such as creating hard-

ware, programming computers, or the configuration

and administration of networks and operative systems.

Although this paper is focused initially to VET stu-

dents, the results have been applied and extended to

engineering courses and university labs, and would be

easily applied both in classroom based courses anddistance-learning courses.

This paper describes the process of analysis, design

and implementation of Andruino-A1, a low-cost

smartphone based mobile robot, Internet connected,

for educational purposes, as well as its application

to cover different learning objectives and to reinforce

students skills.

The paper is organized as follows: Section 2

describes the concept of what we call BYOR: Bring

Your Own Robot education policy and the contri-

bution of Andruino-A1 to meet that goal. Section 3presents the design criteria and choices in order to

get an open low-cost robot connected to networks to

achieve the BYOR policy. Section4illustrates the pro-

cess of building an Andruino-A1 robot, including both

hardware and software issues. Section 5 is devoted

to discuss results in the classroom. Finally, Section 6

presents conclusions and future works.

2 BYOR: Bring Your Own Robot Education

Policy and Andruino-A1

Until now, educational robotics tasks could be per-

formed using simulation environments, or in labora-

tories and classrooms of an academic institution with

real robots, usually acquired at medium or high prices.

On the other hand, nowadays, popular massive

open online course (MOOC) platforms, as Cours-

era [7], EdX [8] or Udacity [9] have changed the

way technicians and engineers can update and expand

their knowledge. So, some prestigious universities are

offering robotics courses changing the way studentslearn about robotics. Usually, these courses offered

videotaped classes, and provide their students with a

remote software platform, as Matlab or Python, but,

in general, they are lacking in the implementation of

tasks in real robots.

Therefore, there is a need in learning process of

robotic, both in classroom and online courses, for edu-

cational low cost robots, full of sensors and easy to

construct.

So the primary goal of Andruino-A1 is to enable

that each student can own a real low cost mobile robot,

network connected (TCP/IP, 3G, WiFi, Bluetooth)

and full of sensors (camera, GPS, accelerometer...) to

perform tasks, homework and robotic projects. With

Andruino-A1 we pursuit a BYOR: Bring your own

robot education policy equivalent to BYOD: Bringyour own devices in computers world. Furthermore,

as students construct and program their Andruino-

A1 robot, they increase their knowledge and skills

in software, hardware, programming, protocols and

networks.

The increase in the use of educational robots in

classrooms and labs has been made possible thanks

to the appearance of low or middle-cost educational

robotics kits, which are mechanically easy to con-

struct. So there exists a wide variety of robotics kits

(see[10]-[2] and the references there in for a reviewof educational robotics kits).

In [10] a review of robotics and educational

mechanical construction kits is shown. In the same

way, Table 1 was created to serve as a quick ref-

erence for educational robotics kits selection, but

instead of focusing on mechatronics as is the case

with [10], it has a computational point of view,

because our courses are oriented to ICT vocational

training. In this table, along with some technical fea-

tures, estimated cost and the level of education for

which the kit could be used, we attempted to deter-mine whether it was an open platform, in order to

know if students could learn and study all aspects of

the system.

Despite the variety of models available in the

market, from systematic studies about educational

robotics in scientific literature [11]it has been shown

that most authors are using LEGO MindStorm [2].

But normally, it is not possible to acquire this robotics

equipment for each group of two or three students

because of the limited budget of VET schools. On

the other hand, most of them are non-open roboticskits, based on microcontrollers, and with a pro-

prietary programing language, so they have limi-

tations in order to the development of the skills

required in computational and engineering courses

such as hardware configuration, OS administration,

network configuration or high-level programming,

among others.

Fortunately, two factors have allowed us to over-

come the limitation indicated above:

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J Intell Robot Syst (2016) 81:6376 65

Table1

EducationalRoboticsKitsfromacomputationalpointofview

Name/URL

Educationallevel

Open

Hardwarefeatures

SoftwareFeatures

Cost(euros)

LegoMindstorm

Secondary

No

Me

chanicallysimplebasedonLego

NativeNXT-GSoftware(proprietary

)

400

NTX/EV3[USA]

Baccalaureate

pieces(plastic),butcanusemetal

Others:Labview,NBC,RobotC,BrcikOS

http://mindstorms.lego.com

VETUniversity

par

tsfromTetrix.Basedona32bits

(OS/C/C++),LejOS(Java),Matlab/Simulink

AR

MMCUwith256KbofFlash

memoryand64KBofexternalRAM,

LC

Ddisplay100x64,audio,USBand

Blu

etoothconnections.4inputsfor

sen

sors,3outputsformotors.

LegoWeDo

Primary

No

Sim

plemechanicalconfiguration,

LegoWeDoSoftware(proprietary)

140

Robotics[USA]

bas

edonLegopieces(plastic).

Other:Scratch

http://www.legoeducation.us/

RoboticsOllo[SouthKorea]

Primary

No

Sim

plemechanicalconstruction,

RoboPlus(proprietary)

75

http://www.robotis.com/xe/olloen

bas

edoninterlockingplasticparts.

ThecontrollermoduleisCM-100A

LN

-101externalmoduleisneeded

for

programmingRoboPlus.

RobotisBioloid[SouthKorea]

Secondary

No

Humanoidrobotbasedonnetworked

RoboPlus(RobotisSoftware,proprie

tary)

900

http://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID

mainBaccalaureate

servomotorsDynamixel.Controller

Other:R+m(forsmartphones),

VETUniversity

CM

-530isbasedonCortexARMCPU.

DynamixelSDKforCdevelopers.

RoboticsDARwIn-OP[SouthKorea]

University

Software.Humanoidrobotbasedinnetworked

GNU/LinuxonPC

8500

http://www.robotis.com/xe/darwinen

servomotorsDynamixel.Hardwareis

aPC(miniITX,IntelAtomZ530)linked

toaControllerCM-370(microntroller,

acc

elerometer,gyroscopeandI/Os)to

con

trolservomotorsDynamixel.

Fischertechnik[Germany]

PrimarySecondaryNo

Sim

plemechanicalconstruction,basedon

Roboprosoftware

350

http://www.fischertechnik.de

interlockingplasticparts.RoboTXController(proprietary)

isb

asedon32bitARM9CPU,8MBRAM

,Others:C,Scratch(not-official)

2M

Bflash,with12inputsand4outputs.
http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://mindstorms.lego.com/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.legoeducation.us/http://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.fischertechnik.de/http://www.robotis.com/xe/darwin_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/BIOLOID_%7Bm%7Dainhttp://www.robotis.com/xe/ollo_%7Be%7Dnhttp://www.legoeducation.us/http://mindstorms.lego.com/

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Table1

(continued)

Vexrobotics[USA]

Secondary

No

Simplemechanicalconstruction,basedon

easyCV4forCortex

400

http://www.vexrobotics.com/

Baccalaureate

interlockingmetalparts.ControllerVex

ROBOTCforCortexandPIC

VETUniversity

CortexisbasedonARMCortex-M3

CPU,

RAM:64KB,Flash:384KB,12inputs,8

analoginputs,8motoroutputs,UAR

TeI2C.

Microsoft.NETGadgeteer[USA]

Baccalaureate

Software

ElectronicModules(controller,sensors,etc..)

.NETMicroFrameworkVisual

250

http://www.netmf.com/gadgeteer/

VETUniversity

Hardware

notjustforrobotics.ControllerFEZ

isbased

Studio/VisualC#E

xpress

(partially)

onARM7,Flash4.5MB,RAM16M

B,I2C,

UART,USB.Mechanicalpartsaren

otincluded.

Boe-RobotfromParallax[USA]

Secondary

Yes

MobilerobotbasedonBASICStam

p2

PBASIC

150

http://www.parallax.com

microcontroller,withtouch,lightan

d

infraredsensors.

E-puck[Switzerland]

Secondary

Yes

Differentialwheeledmobilerobotb

asedondsPIC

C,ASEBA

850

http://www.e-puck.org/

Baccalaureate

30with8KRAM+144KFlash,2s

tepmotors,

VETUniversity

lightsensor,colorcamera,microphones,load

speakerandinfraredproximity.

Moway[Spain]

PrimarySecondary

No


asedon

MowayWord,C

180

http://moway-robot.com

PIC18F86J50withinfraredsensors,lightsensors,

temperaturesensor,microphone,speakerandRF

moduleforwirelesscommunication

ArduinoRobot[Italy,Spain]

PrimarySecondary

Yes


asedontwo

Processing

200

http://arduino.cc/en/Main/Robot

Baccalaureate

ArduinoLeonardoboards:motorco

ntrolboardand

VETUniversity

control/sensorboard(withcompass,LCD,speaker,

andanaloganddigitalI/O)
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The first is the increase of open-hardware and

open-software, mainly based around the Arduino

project [13]. Arduino is a microcontroller board

founded on easy-to-use open hardware and soft-

ware, which nowadays is used in a lot of schools

as an introduction to computer programming

courses, in automation courses and in electronicslabs. Arduino is currently widely used for creat-

ing robots [14][15] and for teaching embedded

systems [16].

The second is the increase in the use of smart-

phones, devices that can be used as robotic

parts, as shown in [17]-[18], and most of them

have numerous technical gadgets that could

be used in robotics projects as low-cost sen-

sors and technical features: accelerometer, light

sensor, temperature sensor, magnetic field sen-

sor, gyro positioning, GPS, camera, micro-phone, Bluetooth communication, 802.11 com-

munications, TCP/IP implemented, feathery bat-

teries, etc... Furthermore, from a computational

point of view, smartphones are microprocessor-

based systems that execute an operating system

and that have more possibilities (CPU, mem-

ory, etc...) than microcontroller-based systems,

like Arduino.

Among all the Operating Systems used in smart-

phones, Android, which is based on the Android

Open Source Project (AOSP), has become the most-

used, especially amongst the young population, so

a lot of students of vocational education have a

device of this kind. So in the classroom the use

of Android devices in educational robotics could

be considered almost zero-cost. In this case, the

fact that most students were already owners of

smartphones with Android operating systems along

with the large number of sensors available on

them, discouraged the use of other more powerful

platforms based on low-cost microprocessors such

as Raspberry PI, which was also considered as

an alternative.

Besides this advantage, the use of Android smart-

phones in robotics in VET involves students learning

from a computing educational point of view:

Use of programming languages (Java, Python,..)

for mobile devices with professional developer

tools as Eclipse, which they will most likely be

exposed to during their working life.

Fig. 1 Components of Andruino-A1 mobile robot

Administration of Android operating system

(process, command line interface, logs, threads,

sockets, etc).

The ability to work with robot networks

(cooperative robots), founded on the huge

communications capabilities of smarthphones:

GPRS/3G, TCP/IP, WiFi, and Bluetooth.

3 Design Criteria and Components Selection

After preliminary studies [19], the design and con-

struction of the mobile robot called Andruino-A1 is

guided by the following principles so that even remote

students can use this robot easily in their learning

process:

1. Simplicity: It must contain the minimum

number of hardware components, with a simple

mechanical construction, and with the minimum

number of lines of code. Thus, no sensor will be

installed as external hardware, and all the data

about the position, movement and environment

of the robot will be obtained from sensors on the

smartphone.

2. Open:Students can construct it from parts which

are easy-to-find (local shops or popular web-

stores), and must be modular and extensible.

All information should be published, so stu-

dents or others can easily repeat and improve

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the robot design, using open tools. Further,

the robot could be operated using common

network tools, such as web browser, or typ-

ical administrator tools, for example telnet or

ssh clients.

3. Low Cost: The robot must be as cheap as

possible (considering the use of smartphonesowned by students), so that it could have partici-

pated in the Affordable Educational Robot Chal-

lenge of the African Robotic Network or similar

ones.

4. Educational: The construction of the robot

and the improvements made by students must

implement procedural knowledge in several

areas (hardware, communications, programming,

robotics, networking, social skills and group

work).

5. Autonomous and Cooperative: The robotmust have sufficient capacity to act as

an autonomous robot [20], yet having the

capacity to act on the orders of others or

in cooperation with other robots (comput-

ers) using communication networks and the

Internet.

To create a low-cost mobile robot based on

Android, it is necessary that the phone commands the

engines on some mechanical platform. Therefore, it

was necessary to define components at different levels

(see Fig.1):

1. A platform for the robot, which must be open,

easily reachable, and easy to construct. After ana-

lyzing several options and products, a wheeled

toy platform, with a cost of 10 euros, was

selected that included two DC motors and

gears which meets the design requirements indi-

cated above (see Fig. 2). Any similar commer-

cial platform, or even a handmade one, could

also be used.

2. Low level control of the robot. The electronics

to control the motors to perform basic move-

ments (forward, reverse, turn left and right) is

usually solved in the Arduino using an H-bridge

circuit implemented on a single integrated cir-

cuit L239D which meets the design require-

ments. So, the low-level control is implemented

in Arduino.

3. Communication between Android and Arduino,

to send commands from Android to Arduino.

After analyzing several communication possibili-

ties for the smartphone to Arduino (see Table 2)

and based on the design criteria mentioned above,

the Android audio output was selected, using a

simplex and asynchronous communication at a

low bit rate with Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK)

modulation, instead of using Dual-tone multi-frequency coding as with [16]. USB OTG is

a great alternative for communication between

Arduino and Android, and it will be used in the

future, but at the time of starting the project only

a few mobile phones meet the OTG protocol.

These phones are more expensive and therefore

do not meet the design criteria. In the same

way, using a Bluetooth shield on Arduino (as

in [22]) increases costs. Thus, by using FSK,

the cheapest Arduino UNO could be selected.

Total cost of Arduino plus electronic components(including DC motors control and FSK interface)

is around 25 euros.

4. Communication between the robot and other

devices (PCs and other robots). In order

for the mobile robot to be able to com-

municate and cooperate with other agents,

TCP/IP over WiFi was selected, so that the

Android must be a server which answer com-

mands and queries from client machines

(computers or robots).

Thus, according to the design criteria and the

choices indicated above, Andruino-A1 is a modular

differential robot with two lines of wheels placed

at each side of the robot, which are driven by two

independent DC motors that make it possible the

robot to move forwards or backwards, and rotate on

the spot.

4 Building the Andruino-A1 Mobile Robot and

Covered Learning Objectives

4.1 Hardware

To ensure that the Andruino-A1 board can be eas-

ily plugged into Arduino board, it was designed

as an Arduino Shield using a universal strip-

board (one soldering side) so that the construc-

tion of the prototype can be made by stu-

dents with no previous experience in electronic

prototyping.

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Fig. 2 Andruino-A1

robotic base

As shown in Figs. 3 and 4, there are two main

areas in the circuit: one area for the H-bridge inte-

grated circuit to control the DC motors, and another

area dedicated to the audio FSK interface, which

consists of just a voltage divider and two filter

capacitors.

In the construction of the board, several recommen-dations must be taken into account:

In order for FSK demodulation in the Arduino

microcontroller to work properly, the potentiome-

ter needs to be set at half the supply voltage by

using a multimeter, to serve as a reference for

the analog comparator of the Arduino microcon-

troller.

In the Arduino board, step on pins are not

matched, so special care must be taken when

soldering the male pin on the stripboard

so that it fits properly into the Arduinoboard.

The pinout of 4-pole mini jack is different for each

mobile phone manufacturer, so it is recommended

to consult the technical information of the phone

to verify the location of the pins GND and audio

output connector.

For the circuit design, the Fritzing tool [23]

(www.fritzing.org) was used by the students, which

allows for circuit design to be made starting from the

breadboard design and then extending to the schemat-

ics and PCB manufacturing.

The circuit implementation by students covers the

following learning objectives:

Basic electronics skills, such as soldering, mul-

timeter uses, electronics parts identification and

use, color code of resistors and pinout IC identifi-

cation among other.

Electronic prototype construction, mainlyArduino shields.

Table 2 Alternative ways of connecting Arduino and Android

Technology Software Extra Hardware Notes

Amarino Amarino Libraries and codes Arduino Bluetooth shield Android and Arduino communicates

as BlueSMiRF Gold. wirelessly using Bluetooth.

Arduino WiFi Arduino WiFi Library Arduino WiFi Shield Android and Arduino communicates

wirelessly using WiFi.

Google ADK Google ADK Arduino USB Host Arduino ADK (or Arduino UNO with USB

Shield Arduino ADK Host Shield) acts as the host, and the

smartphone acts as a peripheral device,

in the USB bus that connects both devices.

OTG USB Usb-Serial-for-Android Library OTG cable In these devices the phone can act as host

which is connected to the Arduino simply

via an OTG cable

SoftModem SoftModem Libraries Arms22-Softmodem Android and Arduino communicates using

modulated audio signal.
http://www.fritzing.org/http://www.fritzing.org/

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Fig. 3 Andruino-A1 shield

Knowledge of DC motor control using H-bridge. Knowledge of the Arduino open hardware archi-

tecture with its many hardware scalability options

through shields.

Basic skills in computer-aided electronic design

and the use of CAD / CAE.

Figure5shows the assembled Andruino-A1 robot.

4.2 Arduino Software

The Arduino basic program, written in Processingand using Arduino IDE (version 0023), performs two

tasks:

Demodulating the audio signal (FSK com-

mand) generated by the Android device, using

the SoftModem0044 library for Arduino-0023

Fig. 4 Fritzing Andruino-A1 circuit

Fig. 5 Andruino-A1 mobile robot

(http://code.google.com/p/arms22/) for data trans-mission at a rate of 630 bps. This library

uses the analog comparator (on-chip analog

comparator) Arduino microcontroller Atmega

3285.

Generating PWM signals to control DC motors

through the H-bridge, according to demodulated

FSK command.

The developed application covers the following

learning objectives:

Knowledge of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM),to control the speed and direction of rotation of

DC motors, both implemented by interrupts or in

the main loop.

Knowledge of the Frequency-Shift Keying (FSK)

modulation and demodulation process, and how it

can be implemented in a microcontroller.

Programming with Processing, a language like

C, for performing low-level tasks. Using the

programming and debugging environment of

Arduino. Loading and running programs from the

PC to the Arduino. Creating a communication protocol defined by the

student, for communication between Android and

Arduino using FSK.

4.3 Android Software

The Android program performs several tasks:

Reading the smartphones sensors and physical

parameters of wireless networks, in order to get
http://code.google.com/p/arms22/http://code.google.com/p/arms22/

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motion, environmental and position data, for use

in a control algorithm, and transmit them via the

network to other nodes.

Implementing a server using sockets to receive

commands (forward, back, stop, left, right)

from any network device, such as a PC

or tablet using a telnet client application,according to a defined protocol. And then,

transforming network commands received

into FSK modulated signals to command

Arduino.

Implementing a server using sockets to trans-

mit sensor data, such as GPS coordinates,

azimuth or beacon levels of the closest access

points.

Implementing a simple http server using sockets

to transmit images from the smartphone camera

to any network device, such as a PC using aweb browser, so that the robot could operate as a

telepresence robot.

The developed application covers the following

learning objectives:

Knowledge of Object-oriented programming and

Java basic concepts. As a development lan-

guage, Java is the most commonly-used for pro-

gramming Android devices, and from a didac-

tic point of view it is the most commonly-used

language in computers as is reflected in theTIOBE index (www.tiobe.com).

Basic use and configuration of the Eclipse devel-

opment environment for Android (Eclipse, SDK,

ADT).

Knowledge of the basic structure of a Java appli-

cation for Android in the Eclipse environment.

Knowledge of the life cycle of an Android appli-

cation: onCreate, onStop,...

Knowledge of the elements of a graphical

interface, such as buttons, textviews and other

Android Widgets, and the definition of Lis-tener to attend to GUI events.

Knowledge and use of threads in applica-

tion programming using the Thread class to

schedule tasks in the background that send

messages to the main thread using Handler

class.

Knowledge and use of Broadcast Receiver to

receive information and events from the Android

system.

Knowledge and use of android.media components

for generating FSK signals by mixing a sinusoidal

signal and data, according the communication

protocol defined.

Knowledge and use of classes that allow us to

identify the IP of the device and use sockets to

send/receive messages from other computers orrobots.

Knowledge and use of the Android sensor frame-

work, which allows us to monitor the motion,

environmental and position sensors, which are the

robot sensors.

Knowledge and use of the Android loca-

tion.package that allows us to get data from

the GPS, which will determine robots outdoor

position.

Knowledge and use of WiFis frame as a method

to get the robots indoor position. Knowledge of the http protocol and headers, to

send images or other MIME types.

5 Andruino-A1 in Classroom

The initial purpose of Andruino-A1 was to facil-

itate the teaching of introductory robotics in the

superior degrees of Computers and Networks in

a vocational education school, with 20-42 year old

students, as a part of their scholar activities (12hours in class-room of 126 hours of the disci-

pline, plus a similar period of time as homework)

and being a mandatory task to pass the course.

Fig. 6 shows different Andruino-A1 mobile robots

and software developed by VET students, and some

videos can be watched at the Andruino project

pagehttp://www.andruino.es.

The students built the robot as a group task: dur-

ing the first stage they actively contributed with ideas

on the electronic and mechanical integration of com-

ponents on the robot (construction of the mechan-ical structure of the robot base is performed fol-

lowing a manual). Secondly, they programmed the

Arduino microcontroller using Processing, to imple-

ment the basic movement commands of the robot,

following an example given by their teacher. After

that, they programmed their smartphones in Java

using Eclipse to define simple applications networks

protocols, to understand threads and to transmit

data from the sensors of the phone. So finally, the stu-
http://www.tiobe.com/http://www.andruino.es/http://www.andruino.es/http://www.tiobe.com/

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Fig. 6 Andruino-A1 mobile robots and software developed by VET students

dent were able to teleoperate the robot manually from

a PC or a tablet using the classroom WiFi network,

or via the Internet using a Virtual Private Network

(VPN). An example of using the robot Andruino-

A1 is shown in Fig. 7, in which a PC web browser

displays (almost) real-time images from the robots

camera, which acts as a simple web server to

transmit the image wirelessly. The screenshot also

shows how the robot is teleoperated by a student

using a telnet client, and simultaneously the values

of phones sensors and wireless beacons levels are

received and logged in CSV format. Fig.8shows the

Fig. 7 Operators view of Andruino-A1 (Camera, Sensors and Command Terminal)

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Fig. 8 Andruino-A1 teleoperated from a tablet.

Andruino-A1 mobile robot being teleoperated from

a tablet. At this point, some simple control theory con-cepts were introduced to the ICT VET students. So,

they were able to operate the robot automatically using

scripts in a GNU/Linux PC, as in open-loop control

to perform a sequence of tasks, as shown in the code

below:

#!/bin/sh ANDRUINO=192.168.1.11 (sleep 3;\\

echo "Hello Andruino"; sleep 4; \\

echo "forward"; sleep 4;\\

echo "right"; sleep 4;\\

echo "forward"; sleep 4; \\

echo "left" ) \\

| telnet $ANDRUINO >output 2> /dev/nullThey also operated the robot in feedback close-

loop proportional control, so that the robot automati-

cally pointed towards the North. If its north-facing ori-

entation is distributed, the robot automatically rotates

according to the error, with the azimuth obtained from

the phone sensors.

...

int azimuth = (int) event.values[0];

if (azimuth > 10 || azimuth = 180

|| azimuth

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Fig. 10 Opinion of students about Andruino-A1 impact in

learning of different curriculum areas.

is characterized by the levels of wireless signal of the

access points (AP) around it, so therefore it is defined

a relation between the detected access points, their

power, and the position in space.

The creation of the robot Andruino-A1 as class-

room project for the VET course was highly appre-

ciated by the students in a discussion at the end of

the course, as students felt that by building the robot

they needed to perform many tasks and face real and

unexpected problems about electronic prototype con-

struction and programming for smartphones and, atthe same time, they were able to apply previously-

learned concepts such as modulation, using TCP/IP

sockets, server implementation and hardware concepts

among others.

Using and programming robots with their own

smartphones was a very surprising and attractive edu-

cational task for the young students because these

devices are used by them as an everyday communi-

cation tool, but are normally limited in educational

Fig. 11 Andruino robots ecosystem architecture

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centers. Fig.10 shows the opinion of the students on

the degree of impact of the project (evaluated from

0 to 10) for each of the curriculum areas. Further-

more, 80% of students believed that it allowed them

to achieve an integrated view of the different areas of

the curriculum. Furthermore, this experience encour-

aged other VET teachers to work with robotics in theclassroom.

Methodologically, the project in the classroom

implemented a project based learning (PBL), accord-

ing to the paradigm of learning by doing. But what is

more important from a methodological point of view

of experience, it allowed students to work following a

systemic methodology instead of the traditional reduc-

tionist paradigm. Thus, changing the focus from each

part to the whole system, making more on the syn-

thesis and not only in analyzing, in order to integrate

knowledge which are usually presented separatelyin different disciplines as the traditional reductionist

paradigm implies (hardware versus software, devel-

opment versus system administration, local versus

remote,...), and avoiding creating isolated islands of

knowledge in the minds of students.

6 Conclusions and Future Developments

In this paper we described the design of a modular

educational Internet connected low-cost open mobilerobot, called Andruino-A1, for less than 35 euros (not

including the cost of the smartphone), with a lot of

sensors and communication resources: light sensor,

GPS, camera, accelerometer, compass, Bluetooth and

Wi-Fi, that can be easily constructed, programmed

and improved by students in the classroom or by

remote e-learning students. Its initial purpose was to

facilitate the teaching of introductory robotics in the

superior degrees of Computers and Networks in a

vocational education school; but clearly Andruino-A1

could be used in engineering university courses, so itis being used in robotics courses at the University of

Seville.

It is a first step introducing what we call BYOR:

Bring Your Own Robot education policy equivalent

to BYOD: Bring your own devices in computers

world.

Andruino-A1 is the simplest version of Andru-

ino robots. Because of their four levels modular

architecture (robot base, low-medium control-level,

smartphone and distributed setup) leveraged versions

are being implemented, including improved robot

base, on-board sensors, Raspberry-Pi, distributed con-

trol, ROS connections, cooperative robots and more

remote processing and data capabilities, as it is typ-

ical in cloud robotics (see Fig. 11). These advanced

versions of Andruino robots offer a wide range on edu-cational resources that could be used in vocational and

university education as well as in MOOC courses or

complementary to virtual labs.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

Conflict of interests The authors declare that they have no

conflict of interest.

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Francisco M. Lopez-Rodrguez received in 1997 the M.S.

degree from the University of Seville, Spain, in telecommuni-

cation engineering. After working as an engineer and networkadministrator, since 2004 he has been professor at vocational

training in computer science branch. He is developing his doc-

toral thesis in mobile robots under the direction of Dr. Federico

Cuesta.

Federico Cuesta is an Associate Professor at the Department

of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of

Seville, Spain. He received a M.Sc. degree from the University

of Seville in 1994 and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from

the same university in 2000. He received the Excellence Doc-

torate Award from the University of Seville, and was nominated

for the First EURON Georges Giralt PhD Award devoted to thebest PhD thesis in Robotics in Europe. His research interests

include Intelligent Control and Robotics, Nonlinear Control and

Stability Analysis, and software for Systems Automation. He

has published more than 70 papers in international journals and

conference proceedings and a book (Intelligent Mobile Robot

Navigation, Springer-Verlag).

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