Chessbot: A voice-controlled chess board with self-moving pieces

Abstract

Automated chess is an emerging challenge from the field of robotics to human interaction. Customarily, chess playing robots use video camera for detecting the state of the board and robotic arm to manipulate the pieces, which makes it either expensive or too fragile to move. In this study, an automated chess board called “Chessbot” was built by combining a multitude of technologies and techniques such as voice command recognition, x and y plotting and recognition of chess pieces in a Cartesian plane, artificial intelligence algorithm, and Android mobile application. To properly execute chess moves either from a human player or computer via voice commands or a mobile game interface, the microcontroller provides motors the current and landing squares of chess pieces on the board. For the evaluation, several matches were simulated to perform various testing procedures such as voice command recognition, move log accuracy, display and user input acceptance accuracy, self-arrangement, and chess move reliability. Upon testing, Chessbot performs all the necessary tasks efficiently and accurately, which indicates the possibility of using this automated device for chess games at a hobby-level or professional matches.