Mobile and Serial Robots

(Robots Móviles y Articulados)

Types of Mobile Robots
MCTG1021

Carlos Saldarriaga, PhD

[email protected]
A few announcements & reminders

• WS1 next Monday

• HW0 due 05/26

• HW1 due 05/22

 Classification

• Mobile base which allows the robot to move freely in the environment
• One or more RB’s equipped with a locomotion system
• Two main classes of mobile robots:
• Wheeled mobile robots typically consist of a RB (base or chassis) and a
system of wheels which provide motion.
• Legged mobile robots are made of multiple RB’s, interconnected by
prismatic or revolute joints. Some of these bodies form lower limbs, whose
extremities (feet) periodically meet the ground to realize locomotion.

UVD
Robots

BD Atlas

Cheetah
WMR advantages

• Wheeled robots have been widely used to achieve mobility

because there are many advantages including
• The simple structure
• Energy efficiency
• Fast speed
• From the viewpoint of control, less control effort is required, owing to
their simple mechanisms and reduced stability problems.
• Low fabrication cost, and so forth

Festo Robotino
Types of wheels

Wheeled robots consume less

energy and move faster than
other locomotion mechanisms
• Two types
• Standard wheel
• Conventional tire
• Special wheel
• Unique mechanical
structures including
rollers or spheres.

1. Determine d and b
2. Steering
3. Actuation
Standard Wheels

• Condition 1 is the kinematic parameter design problem for a single

standard wheel. Parameter d can be either 0 or some positive
constant. Parameter b usually set to zero.
• Condition 2 is a design problem for whether the wheel orientation
can be changed or not.
• If the steering axis is fixed, the wheel provides a velocity constraint
on the driving direction
• If steering motion is allowed, the offset d plays a significant role in the
kinematic modeling.
• Condition 3
• Steering/driving motion by actuators
• Drive steering or motion passively.
 Standard Wheels (cont.)

In summary, four types of standard

wheels are commonly used.
• Passively driven wheel with a fixed
steering axis.
• Passive caster wheel with offset d.
• Active caster wheel with offset d,
where the steering and driving
motions are controlled by actuators.
• Active orientable wheel with zero
offset d, where steering and driving
motions are driven by actuators.
Special wheels

Although std wheels are

advantageous because of their
simple structure and good reliability,
the nonholonomic constraint limits
robot motion.
Special wheels can be employed to
obtain omnidirectional motion of a
MR (omnimobile R). We consider 2
typical designs of special wheels:
1. Swedish wheel: Small passive
free rollers along the outer rim
2. Spherical wheel: The rotation of
the sphere is constrained by rollers
that make rolling contact with the
sphere. Omnidirectional, but difficult
and the payload must be quite low
 Special Wheels (cont.)

• Passive rollers are free to rotate

around the axis of rotation, which
results in lateral motion of the
wheel. As a result, a driving
velocity should be controlled,
while the lateral velocity is
passively determined by the Nexus robotics
actuation of the other wheels.

• Another drawback is that the

surface of the sphere can be
polluted when traveling over dirty
ground and it is difficult to
overcome irregular ground
conditions
ETH Rezero ballbot
 Swedish or Mecanum wheels

Notice the roller axes

Muir and Neuman, Kinematic modeling of Tatar et al., Structures of the Omnidirectional Robots with Swedish Wheels
wheeled mobile robots
Summary

Key difference
between a and b is
that a can
accomplish
steering motion
with no side
effects, as the
center of rotation
passes through the
contact patch with
the ground.
 Geometry and Stability

The choice of wheel types

for a MR is strongly linked Navlab I (CMU)

to the choice of wheel

arrangement, or geometry.
The M.R. designer must
consider these 2 issues
simultaneously when
designing the locomoting
mechanism of a WMR.
There is no single wheel
configuration that
maximizes maneuverability,
controllability and stability.
ETH RSL
Stability

Conventionally, static stability

requires a minimum of 3 wheels.
Center of g must be within the Warthog (Clearpath robotics)

triangle formed by the ground

contact points.
Stability can be further improved
by adding wheels, but the
hyperstatic nature of the
geometry will require flexible
suspension on uneven terrain.

A two-wheel differential-drive robot can achieve static stability

if the center of mass is below the wheel axle
 Typical Configurations

Cye (Aethon)

3-DX8
Typical Configurations (cont.)
Typical Configurations (cont.)
General Assumptions

• We asume that the robots roll on hard, flat, horizontal ground

without skidding
• The mobile robot has a single rigid body chassis

• A configuration in the plane that is represented by a chassis fixed

frame relative to a fixed space (global) frame in the horizontal
frame.
• This configuration is generally represented by three coordinates
 Differential-Drive Vehicle

2 fixed wheels with a common axis of

rotation, and 1 or more caster wheels,
typically smaller, whose function is to
keep the robot statically balanced.

The 2 fixed wheels are separately

controlled, different values of angular
velocity may be arbitrarily imposed,
while the caster wheel is passive.

Such a robot can rotate on the spot,

provided that the angular velocities of
the two wheels are equal and opposite.
 Tricycle Vehicle

Two fixed wheels mounted

on a rear axle and a
steerable wheel in front. The
fixed wheels are driven by a
single motor, while the
steerable wheel is driven by
another motor which
changes its orientation.
Alternatively, the rear
wheels may be passive, and
the front wheel may provide
traction as well as steering.
Car-like Vehicle

Two fixed wheels mounted

on a rear axle and two
steerable wheels mounted
on a front axle. One motor
provides (front or rear)
traction while the other
changes the orientation of
the front wheels with
respect to the vehicle. To
avoid slippage, the two
front wheels must have a
different orientation when
the vehicle moves along a
curve. Ackermann
steering.
 Synchro drive

Popular arrangement of wheels in

indoor MR applications. Although
there are 3 driven and steered wheels,
only 2 motors are used in total.

The one translation motor sets the

speed of all three wheels together,
and the one steering motor spins all
the wheels together about each of
their individual vertical steering axes.

The wheels are being steered with

respect to the robot chassis, and
therefore there is no direct way of
reorienting the robot chassis
Maneuverability

High level of maneuverability requires wheels that can move in more than 1
direction, so omnidirectional robots usually employ Swedish or spherical
wheels that are powered. An example is Uranus (CMU), this robot uses 4
Swedish w’s to rotate and translate independently and w/o constraints.

An interesting recent solution to the problem of omnidirectional navigation

while solving ground-clearance problem is the four-castor wheel
configuration in which each castor wheel is actively steered and actively
translated. Complicated
Controllability

There is generally an inverse correlation between

controllability and maneuverability. For example, the
omnidirectional designs such as the 4-castor wheel conf
require significant processing to convert desired
rotational and translational velocities to individual wheel
commands. Furthermore, such omnidirectional designs
often have greater DoF at the wheel.

Li et al., Wheel-ground Interaction Modelling and Torque Distribution for a Redundant Mobile Robot .
Summary

In summary, there is no “ideal” drive configuration that

simultaneously maximizes stability, maneuverability, and
controllability.
Each mobile robot application places unique constraints
on the robot design problem, and the designer’s task is
to choose the most appropriate drive configuration
possible from among this space of compromises.
 Other Applications

• Omnidirectional drive with 3

spherical wheels

• Omnidirectional drive with 4 Tribolo (EPFL)

castor wheels and 8 motors

• Tracked slip/skid locomotion

• Walking wheels

Nomad XR4000
(Nomadic Tech)

Microrover Nanokhod (Hoerner & Sulger and MPI)

Shrimp (EPFL)
 Mobile and Serial Robots
(Robots Móviles y Articulados)
Representing Position and Orientation
MCTG1021

Carlos Saldarriaga, PhD

[email protected]
Position and Orientation in 2D
Position and Orientation in 3D

• Always right-hand convention

• 𝒛ො = 𝒙
ෝ×𝒚 ෝ
• 𝒙
ෝ=𝒚 ෝ × 𝒛ො
• 𝒚
ෝ = 𝒛ො × 𝒙
ෝ Kim et al 2011

• A point p
• 𝒑 = 𝑥ෝ
𝒙 + 𝑦ෝ
𝒚 + 𝑧ො𝒛
• Coordinate frame {B} described
wrt coordinate frame {A}.
• Displaced by vector t and
rotated in some way
• Find relationship between 𝐴𝒑
and 𝐵𝒑
• Two parts: rotation + translation
Orientation in 3D

In 3-dimensions rotation is not commutative

Rotation Matrix

• Elementary rotations

Orthogonal
Rotation Matrix (cont.)

• Rotating a vector

• Composition

There are more ways to represent orientations

 Example

• The same space and point p

represented in three different
references with different
orientations
𝑹𝑎𝑐 𝑹𝑐𝑎 = 𝑰
𝑹𝑎𝑐 = 𝑹−1 𝑇
𝑐𝑎 = 𝑹𝑐𝑎
Prove:
𝑹𝑏𝑐 = 𝑹−1 𝑇
𝑐𝑏 = 𝑹𝑐𝑏
Homogeneous Transformation

• Rotation + Translation
• Compact (homogeneous)
representation

• Not orthogonal
Example

If Rotation of 30 deg about x

If Rotation of 0.3 rad about x of v=[1,2,3]
𝒗′ = 𝑹 𝒗 1
1.02
෥′=T 𝒗
𝒗 ෥ 3.45
HTM

• There are basically three major uses for a transformation matrix:

• To represent the configuration or pose (position + orientation) of a
rigid body
• To change the reference frame in which a vector or frame is
represented
• To displace a vector or frame
In-class activity 2

Fixed reference frame {a}. The

robot must grasp the object with
a reference {e}.
𝑇𝑑𝑏 and 𝑇𝑑𝑒 can be measured
with the camera. 𝑇𝑏𝑐 can be
obtained by the robot conf meas.
and 𝑇𝑎𝑑 is known. Obtain 𝑇𝑐𝑒
Linear Algebra Review

A matrix of size m by n
Linear Algebra Review

• Diagonal matrix
Linear Algebra Review

• Transpose, symmetric and skew-symmetric matrices

Linear Algebra Review

Matrix multiplication
Linear Algebra Review
Linear Algebra Review

• Orthogonality
Linear Algebra Review

• Linear Transformation
Linear Algebra Review

• Positive definiteness