Smart Robotic Personal Assistant Vehicle Using Raspberry Pi and Zero UI Technology

This paper presents a prototype of a smart robotic personal assistant vehicle based on Raspberry Pi and Zero-Uitechnology. Zero UI uses sensory experiences such as gestures, voice and movement to control the devices. A voice controlled robot vehicle implemented in this paper performs three functions, viz. movement of the robot is controlled using voice commands; it has the ability to articulate the text from a captured image using optical character recognition and present the equivalent audio to the user by using a built-in speaker or headset; it accepts voice commands from the user and uses Google Assistant API for any query processing and presents information searched on the Internet to the user in audio form using the built-in speaker or headset. This robotic personal assistant vehicle is a substitute to screen-based communication and makes use of Zero UI for its operation. In addition to the Raspberry Pi board, we use two DC motors to form the wheels of the robot, a webcam with built in microphone, a headset and motor driver IC to implement this robotic personal assistant vehicle. This system enables the visually impaired people to have access to useful information in the public domain by giving voice commands to the robot assistant. The robot can be realized as a wheel chair for the physically challenged. Python programming language is used for the development of software code.