Design and Implementation of a Robot for Maze-Solving using Flood-Fill Algorithm

Autonomous navigation is an important feature that allows a mobile robot to independently move from a point to another without an intervention from a human operator. Autonomous navigation within an unknown area requires the robot to explore, localize and map its surrounding. By solving a maze, the pertaining algorithms and behavior of the robot can be studied and improved upon. This paper describes an implementation of a maze-solving robot designed to solve a maze based on the flood-fill algorithm. Detection of walls and opening in the maze were done using ultrasonic range-finders. Algorithm for straight-line correction was based on PI(D) controller. The robot was able to learn the maze, find all possible routes and solve it using the shortest one.