Wheeled Mobile Robot

19EEE354 – Introduction to Robotics

Applications of a Mobile Robot
Every situation in which an animal, human, or vehicle does useful work today is a
potential application for a mobile robot
• Better: Manufacturers can improve product quality
• Results are more consistent, easier to measure, or easier to control
• Faster: Automation can be more productive than alternatives either due to
increased rates of production, reduced downtime, or reduced consumption of
resources
• Safer: Sometimes the risk to humans is simply not justified when machines are a
viable alterative
• Cheaper: Using robots can reduce overheads. Robot maintenance costs can be
much lower than the equivalent for man-driven vehicles.
• Access: Sometimes, humans cannot even exist at the scales or in the
environments in question
2
Types of Mobile Robots
Automated Guided Vehicles
• Material handling applications in
warehouses, ship yards, etc
• Guidance systems laser are used for
vehicle mobility
• Wireless communication is used for
controlled traffic flow

3
Types of Mobile Robots
Service Robots
• Light material handling applications
like delivery of mail, food, medicine,
biological samples, waste, etc.,
• Many service tasks, however, are
distinguished by higher levels of
intimacy with humans, ranging from
coping with crowds to answering
questions

4
Types of Mobile Robots
Surveillance Robots
• Surveillance robots are like
automated security guards
• The automated ability to move
Singapore police testing public surveillance robot
through an area competently and to
simply sense for intruders is valuable

Security Robot 5
Types of Mobile Robots
Cleaning and Lawn care robots
• Machines for institutional and home floor
cleaning and lawn care
• Cleaning robots are used in airports,
supermarkets, shopping malls, factories,
and so on
• Operations: washing, sweeping,
vacuuming, carpet shampooing, and trash
pickup
• These devices are concerned, not with
getting somewhere, or carrying anything,
but instead with getting everywhere at
least once
6
Types of Mobile Robots
Social Robots
• Specifically designed to interact with
humans and often their main purpose is to
convey information or to entertain
• Applications include
• Answering product location questions in a
retail store (grocery, hardware).
• A robot that delivers hamburgers to kids in a
restaurant would be fun
• Robot assistants for elderly and infirm
individuals

7
Types of Mobile Robots
Field robots
• Field robots perform tasks in the highly
challenging "field" conditions of outdoor
natural terrain
• Almost any type of vehicle that must move
about and do useful work in an outdoor
setting is a potential candidate for
automation
• Most things are harder to do outdoors. It's
difficult to see in bad weather and it's
difficult to decide how to move through
complicated natural terrains

8
Types of Mobile Robots
Inspection, Reconnaissance, Surveillance
and Exploration Robots
• Field robots that deploy instruments from
a mobile platform in order to inspect an
area or find or detect something in an area
• Used in environments that are dangerous
• Deep inside nuclear power plants - steam
generators, waste storage tanks
• Reconnaissance, bomb disposal
• Space exploration
• High tension power lines
• Gas and oil pipelines

9
Mobile Robot Engineering

Reactive
State Reactive
Vehicle State Planning &
Estimation Autonomy
Control

Proprioception Vehicle Hardware

Sensors Actuators Platform

10
Mobile Robot Engineering

Perceptive
Perceptive
Perception Local Map Planning &
Autonomy
Control

Reactive
State Reactive
Vehicle State Planning &
Estimation Autonomy
Control

Proprioception Perception Vehicle Hardware

Sensors Sensors Actuators Platform

11
Mobile Robot Engineering
Deliberative
Global Data Deliberative
Global Map Planning &
Processing Autonomy
Control

Perceptive
Perceptive
Perception Local Map Planning &
Autonomy
Control

Reactive
State Reactive
Vehicle State Planning &
Estimation Autonomy
Control

Proprioception Perception Vehicle Hardware

Prior Data
Sensors Sensors Actuators Platform

12
Challenges involved in Locomotion
Stability
• Number and geometry of contact points
• Centre of gravity
• Static/Dynamic stability
• Inclination of terrain
Characteristics of Contact
• Contact point/patch size and shape
• Angle of contact
• Friction
Type of Environment
• Structure and medium (air, ground, etc.,)
13
Locomotion of Wheeled Robots
• Relatively simple mechanical implementation
• Balance is not (usually) a problem
• All wheels are in ground contact
• Challenges
• Traction
• Stability
• Maneuverability
• Control

14
Wheel Types
1) Standard Wheel

Two DOF
•Rotation around the wheel axle
•Rotation around its contact point with the ground

2) Castor Wheel

Three DOF
•Rotation around the wheel axle
•Rotation around its contact point with the ground
•Rotation around the caster axis

15
Wheel Types
3) Swedish Wheel
Standard wheel with non-actuated rollers around its
circumference
Three DOF
•Rotation around the wheel axle
•Rotation around its contact point with the ground
•Rotation around the roller axles

4) Ball or Spherical Wheel

Three DOF
•Rotation in any direction
•Rotation around its contact point

16
Wheeled Mobile Robots
• The choice of wheel types for a mobile robot is strongly linked to the
choice of wheel arrangement, or wheel geometry
• Design questions:
• What type of wheels?
• Which geometry ?
• The choices are in function of:
• Manoeuvrability
• Controllability
• Stability

17
2 Wheeled Robots
• One steering wheel in the front, one traction
wheel in the rear
• Two-wheel differential drive with the center of
mass (COM) below the axle

18
2 Wheeled Robots
• The minimum of wheel required to have stability is two
• Stability is achieved if the center of mass is below the axis of the
wheels
• Robots with two wheels can hit the ground due to torque
• Dynamic stability can be achieved using Self balancing mechanisms
• The mechanism a linear or curved motion along a path

19
3 Wheeled Robot
• Two-wheel centered differential drive with a third
point of contact
• Two independently driven wheels in the
rear/front, 1 unpowered omnidirectional wheel in
the front/rear

20
3 Wheeled Robot
• Two connected traction wheels (differential)
in rear, 1 steered free wheel in front
• Two free wheels in rear, 1 steered traction
wheel in front

21
3 Wheeled Robot
• Three motorized Swedish or spherical wheels
arranged in a triangle; omnidirectional movement
is possible
• Three synchronously motorized and steered
wheels; the orientation is not controllable

22
3 Wheeled Robot
• Static stability it is required 3 wheels
• The center of gravity must be contained in the triangle formed by the
three contact points
• Stability can be improved by adding more wheels
• The hyper-static nature of geometry requires flexible suspension on
rough terrain

23
4 Wheeled Robot
• Two motorized wheels in the rear, 2 steered
wheels in the front; steering has to be
different for the 2 wheels to avoid
slipping/skidding.
• Two motorized and steered wheels in the
front, 2 free wheels in the rear; steering has to
be different for the 2 wheels to avoid
slipping/skidding.

24
Wheel Configuration
Ackerman Wheel Configuration
• Used in cars
• Not preferred for mobile robot
• Poor Manoeuvrability

25
4 Wheeled Robot
• Four steered and motorized wheels
• Two traction wheels (differential) in
rear/front, 2 omnidirectional wheels in the
front/rear

26
4 Wheeled Robot
• Four omnidirectional wheels
• Two-wheel differential drive with 2 additional
points of contact
• Four motorized and steered castor wheels

27
Sensors for Mobile Robot

28
Optical Wheel Encoder

29
Optical Wheel Encoder

• The encoder is an electromechanical

device that can measure
displacement
• Encoders are normally digital
displacement transducers, consisting
of a mechanical element and a
sensing head, typically of optical type

30
Optical Wheel Encoder Types

Transmissive Wheel Encoder and Reflective Wheel Encoder 31

Wheel Encoder Disc Types

32
Odometry
• Angular movement of wheel → Velocity of the robot → Displacement
of the robot
• Required parameter:
• Total number slots in the encoder
• Diameter of the wheel including tyre
• Square pulse train from the sensor
• Displacement = Number of pulses * (Circumference / Number of
Encoder slots)
• Velocity = Displacement / Time duration of pulse train considered
• This method provides short term accuracy
• Over the time error gets accumulated
33
Wheel Encoder – Quadrature Encoder
• Incremental encoder
• 2 out-of-phase output channels
• Automation applications - direction of
movement is required
• Each channel provides a specific number of
equally spaced pulses per revolution (PPR)
• Direction of motion is detected by the
phase relationship of one channel leading
or trailing the other channel

34
Quadrature Encoder

35
Quadrature Encoder
• Depending on the direction of rotation
• 00 = 0 -> 01 = 1 -> 11 = 3 -> 10 = 2 or
• 00 = 0 -> 10 = 2 -> 11 = 3 -> 01 = 1

• By feeding both outputs into an XOR gate

(exclusive OR) output is a square wave
with twice the frequency regardless of
direction
• This can be useful as it allows one
interrupt pin to monitor both encoder
inputs

36
Quadrature Encoder
• If the value has not changed then
the output is 0
• The sequence of 0, 1, 3, 2 gives an
output of -1
• The sequence of 0, 2, 3, 1 gives an
output of +1
• X represents a disallowed state and
would most likely occur if the
encoder outputs are changing too
quickly for the code to keep up

37
Obstacle Detection Sensors – IR Sensor

• Active IR sensors have two parts:

• A light emitting diode (LED)
• A receiver
• When an object comes close to the sensor,
the infrared light from the LED reflects off of
the object and is detected by the receiver
• Active IR sensors act as proximity sensors

38
IR Sensor
Advantages
• It uses less power
• The detection of motion is possible in the presence or absence of
light approximately with equal reliability.
• They do not need contact with the object for detection
• There is no data leakage because of the ray direction
• These sensors are not affected by oxidation & corrosion
• Noise immunity is very strong

39
IR Sensor
Disadvantages
• Line of sight is required
• Range is limited. (Maximum distance: 10-15 cm)
• These can be affected by fog, rain, dust, etc
• Less data transmission rate

40
IR Sensor
Interface
• GPIO port of a microcontroller is required to receive the signal
• The transmitter continuously transmits the IR waves
• Whenever an obstacle is detected the sensor gives an output by
giving logic 1
• The output remains in logic 1 until the obstacle is removed form its
path
• Interrupt method can be used while programming the controller

41
Obstacle Detection Sensors – Ultra Sonic Sensor
• Measures the distance of a target object
by emitting ultrasonic sound waves, and
converts the reflected sound into an
electrical signal
• Ultrasonic waves travel faster than the
speed of audible sound
• Ultrasonic sensors have two main
components:
• Transmitter (which emits the sound using
piezoelectric crystals)
• Receiver

42
Ultra Sonic Sensor

• Specific distance from the sensor, can be

calculated by
Distance = ½ T x C
• (T = Time and C = the speed of sound)
• At 20°C (68°F), the speed of sound is 343
meters/second (1125 feet/second), but
this varies depending on temperature
and humidity

43
Ultra Sonic Sensor
• Start Pulse → Trig: receives an enabling
pulse from the microcontroller
• Module is told to start measuring distance
• Sensor transmits eight 40kHz pulses
• Echo: Through this pin the sensor sends
a pulse to the microcontroller
• Width is proportional to the time it takes for
the sound to travel from the transducer to
the obstacle and then back to the module
• Pulse width range: 150µs to 25ms
• 35ms ➔ No obstacle

44
Ultra Sonic Sensor
Interface
• GPIO port of a microcontroller is required to receive the signal
• The transmitter transmits the Ultrasonic wave only when triggered
• The echo signal goes high as soon as the trigger signal is given to the
sensor unit
• The echo signal goes low as soon as the receiver receives the
reflected wave
• Timer peripheral or suitable software routine is need to determine
the time between the rising edge and falling edge of the echo signal
• ToF concept can be used to estimate the object distance

45
Obstacle Detection Sensors – LIDAR
• LIDAR – Light Detection and Ranging
• Helps in identification of
• Distance from an object
• Characteristics of the object - size, reflection, etc.,
• Laser light is emitted from the unit (usually IR)
• Laser light hits an object and is scattered
• Some of the light makes it back to the emitter
• The emitter measures the distance
• Emitter turns, and process begins again

46
LIDAR
Types
• Time of flight
• The laser is emitted, and then received
• The time difference is measured, and distance can be calculated
• Result is very accurate, but also expensive due to the extremely high precision
clocks needed on the sensor
• Better suited for long range applications
• Phase difference
• The emitted laser beam is modulated to a specific frequency
• By comparing the phase shift of the returned signal on a few different
frequencies, the distance is calculated
• Most suited for robotics. But less accurate than ToF.

47
LIDAR
Types
• Angle of incidence
• The cheapest and easiest way to do laser range-finding
• By knowing what angle, the reflected laser light hits the sensor, the distance
can be estimated
• This method tends to be of low quality
• The range of the sensor is limited by the sensor size, the smaller the sensor,
the shorter the maximum range

48
LIDAR
Interface
• Serial communication interface from microcontroller – For lidar
sensor
• To implement environment scanning mechanism – servo motor is
used
• Sensor unit transmits the data frame serially
• Extract the part of the frame that contains distance data
• Perform mathematical computation to estimate the distance from the
data taken

49
Obstacle Detection Sensors – Camera
• Mainly used in changing and unstructured
environments
• Helps in object identification in terms of size,
colour, etc.,
• Requires computing power to perform image
processing
• Regular camera does not provide distance value
• Camera + ToF sensor can be one solution
• 3D camera, depth camera can be used to
estimate the distance from the object

50
Localisation in Robots

• Process of determining where a mobile robot

is located with respect to its environment
• Essential for autonomous robot in decision
making for future actions
• Usually, a map of the environment is available
• The robot is equipped with sensors to
observe the environment as well as monitor
its own motion

51
Localisation Sensors - GPS
• Global positioning system initially referred
to a radio navigation system
• Owned by the U.S. government that used
satellites and has come to mean any group
of satellites that broadcast at L1, L2, and L5
carrier frequencies
• Trilateration method is used to calculate
distances accurately

52
 GPS
• GPS works by communication between its different components
• GPS has three parts or elements
• Space segment
• Control segment
• Receivers
Space segment
• Constellation of 31 satellites that revolve in a specific orbit around the earth
• They are located at the height of 20,000 kilometers above the planet, and each of them
continuously sends out microwave signals sensed by the preset receivers
• Each satellite has inbuilt atomic clocks - that keep the satellites in sync and synchronized
with earthbound clocks

53
 GPS
Control segment
• Also known as the ground segment
• Responsible for managing and ensuring the proper functionality of the satellites
• Comprises a master control station, a backup master control station, several command
antennas, control antennas, and monitoring sites
• Critical functions of the ground segments include
• Tracking satellite movements
• Performing analysis
• Monitoring satellite transmissions, and
• Communicating with the satellite to make sure that the information transmitted from the satellites to the
receivers is as accurate as possible

54
 GPS
User segment
• Embedded in virtually all smartphones and trackers in day-to-day devices
• Application cuts across several industries, from transport and aviation to military,
automobile, and IoT
• GPS receivers consist of an antenna and a processor
• The antenna is tuned to pick up the frequency of wave signals being transmitted from
satellites
• At the same time, the processor uses a method known as trilateration to decode and
interpret the information
• Receivers also have a clock that records the time, when a signal was detected

55
GPS
Working
• A GPS receiver can only work when it is in the line of sight of at least three
satellites
• GPS devices are less accurate when used indoors
• Each satellite sends a signal encrypted with the satellite’s location at the time of
transmission and when it sent the signal
• A receiver uses the site from three satellites sending signals to the same receiver
and the time difference from the time of signal transmission to when it was
received
• A mathematical equation is used to determine the distance of the satellites from
it and each other, therefore deducing its location via latitude and longitude
coordinates
• Using the fourth satellite, the receiver can verify the accuracy of the information
it gives

56
GPS
Interface
• Serial interface with AT commands
• Data frame contains the required data

57
Localisation Sensors - Accelerometer
• An electronic sensor that measures the acceleration forces acting on
an object
• In order to determine the object’s position in space and monitor the object’s
movement
• There are two types of acceleration forces:
• Static forces
• Forces are forces that are constantly being applied to the object (such as gravity)
• Dynamic forces
• “Moving” forces applied to the object at various rates (such as vibration)
• Types
• Capacitive type – acceleration measurement
• Piezoelectric type – vibration measurement

58
Accelerometer
• Components: Fixe electrode, Movable
electrode and spring
• No acceleration – distance between
electrodes is same
• Acceleration – distance between the
electrodes changes → change in
capacitance
• Capacitance → Voltage by ASIC that gives
equivalent acceleration value

59
Accelerometer
Interface
• Some chips provide direct analog
output voltage
• Other options are using
communication peripherals like I2C
and SPI

60
Localisation Sensors - Gyroscope
• Gyroscopes measure angular rotation
• Measure the force generated by the Coriolis
Effect
• The MEMS sensor consists of a proof mass
(consisting of four parts M1, M2, M3, and M4)
that is maintained in a continuous oscillating
movement so that it can respond to the
Coriolis effect

61
Gyroscope

62
Gyroscope
Interface
• Interface through I2C serial communication
• Usually available as a combined package with accelerometer

63
Localisation Sensors - Magnetometer
• Magnetometers measure the magnetic
field along one or more axes
• They’re great for navigation and guidance
systems in remote controlled vehicles
• Accurately measure the magnitude and
direction of the Earth’s magnetic field in
the x, y, and z direction
• As a result, it can be used to provide a
compass heading which is why it is also
referred to as a digital compass
• Used in the determination of heading
direction

64
Localisation Sensors - IMU
• Defined as a 9 axis sensor that
measures orientation, velocity, and
gravitational forces
• Uses sensor fusion to combine
• Accelerometer: measures velocity and
acceleration
• Gyroscope: measures rotation and
rotational rate
• Magnetometer: establishes cardinal
direction (directional heading)

65
Beacons
• Provides situational awareness to the
robot
• It provides dynamic localisation in
indoor environment
• Some of the low cost methods
• BLE Beacons
• April Tags
• WiFi SubPos
• Near Field Communication
• RFID

66
Beacons
BLE Beacons
• Small devices that can be mounted on walls, tables, etc.,
• Specially designed for indoor locations
• A robot can detect the BLE beacon signal and calculate its position in the
range of more than two beacons and estimate the location
• The beacons can run on a single battery charge for years
• The Bluetooth receiver must identify the beacon that receives tiny and
static pieces of data within short distances
• The identification consists of a long and unique string called UUID plus two
numeric values from 0-99999 for the beacon’s major and minor number
combinations
• Then is the data used to calculate the location

67
Beacons
April Tags
• Unique markers called Aril Tags can be positioned in important spots in the
indoor environment
• A camera equipped robot will scan the environment and identify the unique
markers whose positions are already known
• Upon identification of the markers the robot can estimate its position
WiFi SubPos
• WiFi localization system can be used in a similar way as BLE beacons
• Since the signal is stronger than Bluetooth, this system covers a large area than
BLE beacons
• Disadvantages of this system are the external power source, additional
equipment, and more setup costs
68
Beacons
NFC (Near Field Communication)
• Uses radio waves to identify the items
• Operates at the 13.56 MHz frequency, and the technology is capable
of using the same NFC device as an NFC reader and an NFC tag
• This unique feature of the NFC technology allows NFC devices to
communicate peer-to-peer
• NFC tags can be placed in different positions within the room
• When the robot comes near the tag, it can estimate its position
• NFC tag does not require power source → Shorter range of operation

69
Beacons
RFID (Radio-Frequency IDentification)
• Similar to NFC, RFID has reader and tags
• Tag types:
• Active – Has power source → Range: 100m
• Passive – Activated by the electromagnetic energy transmitted from reader
→ Range: 25m
• Tags can be placed in important locations
• When the robot reads the tag, it can estimate its position

70