At some point, my robots got bigger. A lot bigger.
This one was an autonomous platform, designed to carry heavy loads, navigate space, and respond to real-world input. It was my most complex robot so far, and a turning point in how I thought about hardware and control systems.
By then, I had started getting better and better at robotics. I was making my own PCBs, routing tracks manually, and working with real electronic constraints. I remember visiting a local PCB producer here in Croatia, I waited almost 10 days in line for my board to be ready. I triple-checked every trace, every pad, every connection. I had no room for mistakes.
This was also when I moved from the old PIC16F84 to the PIC18F series, a whole new level of microcontroller. It opened up new possibilities: more memory, better control, and far more processing power. I started writing more advanced embedded code and using interrupts, timers, PWM, and analog-to-digital conversion. I was deep into it.
I worked on the mechanical frame, the wheel alignment, current drivers, sensor systems, and LCD interface. I used IR and ultrasonic sensors for obstacle detection and started experimenting with closed-loop feedback control.
I built this robot to be fully autonomous, an actual transport assistant. It could carry boxes, follow a programmed path, and respond to environmental changes in real time.
This project taught me about:
- Embedded C programming
- Sensor fusion
- Motor drivers and H-bridge design
- LCD integration
- Signal conditioning
- Power regulation
- Autonomous navigation algorithms
- Real-time systems
It also pushed me into new competitions, higher levels of innovation, and deeper confidence in what I could design.
I wasn’t just blinking LEDs anymore. I was building things that moved, carried, and responded, and people started noticing.
