Thymio Line Following — Senithu Dampegama

THYMIO
LINE FOLLOWING.

Two ground-facing IR sensors, four rules, and careful calibration. A closed-loop control experiment on a Thymio II — the kind of minimal system where you learn what feedback control actually feels like.

DEMONSTRATION — POST-CALIBRATION RUN

CONTROL LOGIC — GROUND IR SENSORS 0 + 1

          ■ ■BOTH ON BLACK→ DRIVE FORWARD
          ■ □LEFT ONLY→ TURN LEFT
          □ ■RIGHT ONLY→ TURN RIGHT
          □ □LINE LOST→ REACQUISITION ROUTINE
        

Motor speeds and detection thresholds iteratively tuned to reduce curve overshoot and improve reliability.

THE CALIBRATION PROBLEM

Out of the box, the robot could not distinguish the black line from the grey background — the raw IR readings overlapped. Sensor threshold calibration separated the two classes; after tuning, the robot tracked both straight and curved sections with high stability.

WHY IT MATTERS

Simple reactive logic plus honest calibration produces reliable autonomy. The closed-loop principles here fed directly into the later, larger systems — the quadruped's behaviour arbitration and the Ackermann platforms' control layers.

QUADRUPED → ACKERMANN V2 →

THYMIO II ASEBA GROUND IR PROXIMITY CLOSED-LOOP CONTROL THRESHOLD CALIBRATION