Advanced Rubik's Cube Algorithmic Solver

Abstract

Rubik's cube is one of the most popular educational and challenging toys. People have tried to solve the puzzle by themselves or build robots that can do it. In this paper, has been proposed a technical solution for building an Advanced Rubik's Cube Algorithmic Solver (ARCAS), that uses a PC and an Arduino Due board as processing units. The design of the robot allows instant color recognition, by using 4 webcams positioned to capture every facet of the cube. Color image segmentation is used to find the HSV mask of the scrambled cube, thus the pattern will be obtained. The images are processed in a C# desktop application. An implementation of Kociemba's algorithm and blindfolded method, Old Pochmann, and M2, is used to solve the cube. The blindfolded method is implemented in a novel way to fit the mechanical structure of the robot and to reduce the time of solving.