Embedded Lab

Indoor plants are great for adding some greenery to home interior decoration. Most of the time low-lighting conditions can sustain indoor plants. However, it is still important that they get proper sunlight for healthy and greenish growth. If you have windows in more than one direction of your house, it is possible that the sunniest spot inside your house is not always the same during the course of day. This mobile sun-seeker robot helps to navigate the interior plants to enjoy the sunniest spot in the house.

The mobile sun-seeker uses two continuous rotation servos to move around and are controlled by an Arduino nano board. Two 6V solar panels are used in two opposite sides of plant to detect the incident sunlight. The sum of the two solar cell readings is used to compute the overall sunniness of a particular location. The sun-seeker robot also uses two ultrasonic range detectors to avoid running into other objects or falling off the edges.