What is Motor Driver IC and how to use it in Line / Path follower robot - IC L293D

Driver IC - L293D:

L293D is a dual H-bridge motor driver integrated circuit (IC). Motor drivers act as current amplifiers since they take a low-current control signal and provide a higher-current signal. This higher current signal is used to drive the motors. L293D contains two inbuilt H-bridge driver circuits. In its common mode of operation, two DC motors can be driven simultaneously, both in forward and reverse direction. The motor operations of two motors can be controlled by input

logic at pins 2 & 7 and 10 & 15. Input logic 00 or 11 will stop the corresponding motor. Logic 01 and 10 will rotate it in clockwise and anticlockwise directions, respectively.

Enable pins 1 and 9 (corresponding to the two motors) must be high for motors to start operating. When an enable input is high, the associated driver gets enabled. Similarly, when the enable input is low, that driver is disabled, and their outputs are off and in the high-impedance state.

Pin details diagram of this driver IC L293D is as follows:

                                                            Figure: Driver IC L293D

Download the datasheet for this IC from http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/27189/TI/L293D.html