Himalayan News Service

Kathmandu, January 27

Students of Kathmandu University (KU) have exhibited a cleaning Robot at the 10th CAN Info-Tech 2004 which is being visited by thousands of visitors on the fourth day of the

exhibition.

Prashanta Man Shrestha, a student of KU, talking to The Himalayan Times informed that this autonomous cleaning Robot was made by a group of four students of the university 10 months ago. The Robot cleans up dust particles. Asked about the cost of the Robot, Shrestha said, "It does not cost much." About Rs 8,000 has been invested to make it, he informed.

It is very useful for big business houses, schools, colleges, and other organisations, he said. This Autonomous Cleaning Robot-Embedded (ACR-e) is an outcome of robotic project at KU. "The objective of this project was to design an embedded mobile robot capable of autonomous navigation."

The primary goal of ACR-e is to navigate its way in a given space so as to cover maximum area and thus cleaning the space, avoiding static obstacles and walls, said Shrestha. "ACR-E is an embedded system with real time processing and an ability to sense its working environment and make decisions based on observed parameters." ACR-e is based on a cleaning programme that resides on a 8951 microcontroller working at 10MHZ.