Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Android Application Design with MIT App Inventor for Bluetooth Based Mobile Robot Control

  • Published:
Wireless Personal Communications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In this study, a Bluetooth-based Android application interface is developed to perform a manual and automatic control of a four-wheel-driven mobile robot designed for education, research, health, military, and many other fields. The proposed application with MIT App Inventor consists of three components: the main screen, the manual control screen, and the automatic control screen. The main screen is where the actions of the control preference selection such as manual control and automatic control and the Bluetooth connection between the mobile robot and Android phone occur. When the robot is operated manually for calibration or manual positioning purposes, the manual control screen is employed to adjust the desired robot movement and speed by hand. In the case of the need for automatic motion control, the desired robot position and speed data are inserted into the mobile robot processor through the automatic control screen. At the first stage of the work, the proposed Android application is developed with the design and block editors of the MIT App Inventor. The compiled application is then installed on the Android phone. Next, the communication between the Arduino microcontroller used for the robot control with the Bluetooth protocol and the Android application is established. The accuracy of the data dispatched to the Arduino is tested on the serial connection screen. It is validated that the data from the Android application is transferred to Arduino smoothly. At the end of this study, the manual and automatic controls of the proposed mobile robot are performed experimentally and success of the coordination between the Android application and the mobile robot are demonstrated.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19
Fig. 20

Similar content being viewed by others

Data Availability

All data generated or analysed during this study are included in this published article.

Code Availability

Can be provided if requested personally through corresponding author mail.

References

  1. Akilan, T., Chaudhary, S., Kumari, P., & Pandey, U. (2020). Surveillance robot in hazardous place using IoT technology. 2020 2nd International conference on advances in computing, communication control and networking (ICACCCN) (pp. 775–780). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICACCCN51052.2020.9362813

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  2. Mikolajczyk, T., Fuwen, H., Moldovan, L., Bustillo, A., Matuszewski, M., & Nowicki, K. (2018). Selection of machining parameters with Android application made using MIT App Inventor bookmarks. Procedia Manufacturing, 22, 172–179. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.promfg.2018.03.027

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hong, S., & Hwang, Y. (2020). Design and implementation for iort based remote control robot using block-based programming. Issues in Information Systems, 21(4), 317–330.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Pokress, S. C., & Veiga, J. J. D. (2013). MIT app inventor: Enabling personal mobile computing. arXiv preprint arXiv:1310.2830

  5. Colter, A. J. (2016). Evaluating and improving the usability of MIT App Inventor (Doctoral dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology).

  6. Fraser, N. (2013). Blockly: A visual programming editor. Retrieved from https://code.google.com/p/blockly

  7. Begel, A., & Klopfer, E. (2007). Starlogo TNG: An introduction to game development. Journal of E-Learning, 53(2007), 146.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., ... Kafai, Y. (2009). Scratch: Programming for all. Communications of the ACM, 52(11), 60–67.

  9. Maloney, J., Resnick, M., Rusk, N., Silverman, B., & Eastmond, E. (2010). The scratch programming language and environment. ACM Transactions on Computing Education (TOCE), 10(4), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Amoran, A. E., Oluwole, A. S., Fagorola, E. O., & Diarah, R. S. (2021). Home automated system using Bluetooth and an android application. Scientific African, 11, e00711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sciaf.2021.e00711

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Raheem, A. K. K. A. (2017). Bluetooth based smart home automation system using arduino UNO microcontroller. Al-Mansour Journal, 27, 139–156.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Liu, Y., & Uthra, D. R. A. (2020). Bluetooth based smart home control and air monitoring system. International Journal of Advanced Research in Engineering and Technology (IJARET), 11(5), 264–274.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Adiono, T., Anindya, S. F., Fuada, S., Afifah, K., & Purwanda, I. G. (2019). Efficient android software development using mit app inventor 2 for bluetooth-based smart home. Wireless Personal Communications, 105(1), 233–256. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-018-6110-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Purkayastha, K. D., Mishra, R. K., Shil, A., & Pradhan, S. N. (2021). IoT based design of air quality monitoring system web server for android platform. Wireless Personal Communications. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-021-08162-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Robianto, R. (2020). Analysis of android based mobile blocking application design using MİT app ınventor. Jurnal Ipteks Terapan, 14(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.22216/jit.2020.v14i1.5082

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Areed, M. F., Amasha, M. A., Abougalala, R. A., Alkhalaf, S., & Khairy, D. (2021). Developing gamification e-quizzes based on an android app: The impact of asynchronous form. Education and Information Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-021-10469-4

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Asghar, M. Z., Sana, I., Nasir, K., Iqbal, H., Kundi, F. M., & Ismail, S. (2016). Quizzes: Quiz application development using Android-based MIT APP Inventor platform. International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications. https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2016.070508

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Singh, M., Singh, G., Singh, J., & Kumar, Y. (2021). Design and validation of wearable smartphone based wireless cardiac activity monitoring sensor. Wireless Personal Communications. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-021-08219-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Ahsan, M. S., Das, S., & Mobarak, H. (2020). Android app based bluetooth controlled low-cost cloth folding machine. 2020 IEEE region 10 symposium (TENSYMP) (pp. 170–173). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/TENSYMP50017.2020.9231012

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  20. Rajpar, A. H., Eladwi, A., Ali, I., & Ali Bashir, M. B. (2021). Reconfigurable articulated robot using android mobile device. Journal of Robotics. https://doi.org/10.1155/2021/6695198

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Nádvorník, J., & Smutný, P. (2014). Remote control robot using Android mobile device. Proceedings of the 2014 15th International Carpathian Control Conference (ICCC) (pp. 373–378). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/CarpathianCC.2014.6843630

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. Aldhalemi, A. A., Chlaihawi, A. A., & Al-Ghanimi, A. (2021). Design and ımplementation of a remotely controlled two-wheel self-balancing robot. IOP conference series: Materials science and engineering. IOP Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Haripriya, G., Divyavani, Y., Devi, A. R., Sravan, M., & Reddy, K. (2021). Arduıno based voıce controlled robot. Complexity International. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-628321/v1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Ersahin, G., & Sedef, H. (2015). Wireless mobile robot control with tablet computer. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 195, 2874–2882. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.06.411

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Ramya, V., & Palaniappan, B. (2012). Web based embedded Robot for safety and security applications using Zigbee. International Journal of Wireless & Mobile Networks, 4(6), 155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Meteab, W. K., Al Rikabi, H. T. S., Al Sultani, S. A. H., & Aljazaery, I. A. (2021). Controlling and monitoring a robot-car based on smart phone applications. IOP conference series: Materials science and engineering. IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/1094/1/012096

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Qadri, I., Muneer, A., & Fati, S. M. (2021). Automatic robotic scanning and inspection mechanism for mines using IoT. IOP conference series: Materials science and engineering. IOP Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/1045/1/012001

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  28. Papcun, P., Zolotova, I., & Tafsi, K. (2016). Control and teleoperation of robot khepera via android mobile device through bluetooth and wifi. IFAC-PapersOnLine, 49(25), 188–193. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2016.12.032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Eren, A., & Doğan, H. (2022). Design and implementation of a cost effective vacuum cleaner robot. Turkish Journal of Engineering, 6(2), 166–177.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Kirli, A., Dilaver, M., & Çakmak, F. (2017). Mobile robot control with android device sensors by using Ros. Mugla Journal of Science and Technology, 3(1), 31–34. https://doi.org/10.22531/muglajsci.272475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Molnár, J., Gans, Š, & Slavko, O. (2020). Design and ımplementation self-balancing robot. 2020 IEEE problems of automated electrodrive theory and practice (PAEP), Kremenchuk, Ukraine (pp. 1–4). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/PAEP49887.2020.9240815

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  32. Varga, J., Vargovčík, L., & Baláž, V. (2017). Design of mobile application for controlling robosoccer via bluetooth. Journal of Automation and Control, 5(2), 46–49. https://doi.org/10.12691/automation-5-2-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Fahmidur, R. K., Munaim, H. M., Tanvir, S. M., & Sayem, A. S. (2016). Internet controlled robot: A simple approach. 2016 International conference on electrical, electronics, and optimization techniques (ICEEOT) (pp. 1190–1194). IEEE.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

Download references

Funding

This study was supported by Fırat University Scientific Research Projects Unit with the project number TEKF.19.07.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Firat University, Elazig, Turkey

    Ahmet Top & Muammer Gökbulut

Authors
  1. Ahmet Top
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Muammer Gökbulut
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ahmet Top.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Authors declare no confict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Top, A., Gökbulut, M. Android Application Design with MIT App Inventor for Bluetooth Based Mobile Robot Control. Wireless Pers Commun 126, 1403–1429 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-022-09797-6

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11277-022-09797-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation