The Design and Development of an Omni-Directional Mobile Robot Oriented to an Intelligent Manufacturing System

Abstract

In order to transport materials flexibly and smoothly in a tight plant environment, an omni-directional mobile robot based on four Mecanum wheels was designed. The mechanical system of the mobile robot is made up of three separable layers so as to simplify its combination and reorganization. Each modularized wheel was installed on a vertical suspension mechanism, which ensures the moving stability and keeps the distances of four wheels invariable. The control system consists of two-level controllers that implement motion control and multi-sensor data processing, respectively. In order to make the mobile robot navigate in an unknown semi-structured indoor environment, the data from a Kinect visual sensor and four wheel encoders were fused to localize the mobile robot using an extended Kalman filter with specific processing. Finally, the mobile robot was integrated in an intelligent manufacturing system for material conveying. Experimental results show that the omni-directional mobile robot can move stably and autonomously in an indoor environment and in industrial fields.

Kinematic Modeling of a Combined System of Multiple Mecanum-Wheeled Robots with Velocity Compensation

“…For the four-Mecanum-wheeled robot in Figure 2, according to Equations (8) and (19), the inverse kinematic equation with velocity compensation is…”

“…In recent years, intelligent and flexible manufacturing has motivated the development of autonomous mobile robots for workpiece and equipment handling and transportation [1,2], and in particular, automated guided vehicle (AGV) technology is widely studied and applied [3][4][5][6][7]. The omni-directional mobile AGV with Mecanum-wheeled robot platform, which has good driving force and easy control performance, can improve the utilization of workshop space and the efficiency of workshop transportation, and is very appropriate for transporting heavy goods in complex industrial environments [8,9]. The AGV that adopts a four-Mecanum-wheeled mobile robot platform with symmetrical structure is the most basic form and most widely used in industry [10][11][12].…”

“…Udomsaksenee et al [35] proposed a global control method for Mecanum-wheeled vehicles with slip compensation.The latest research on cooperative transportation mainly focuses on path planning and navigation algorithms in working environments, and control methods in the cooperative transportation process. Research on the Mecanum-wheeled robot platform is mainly focused on single-Mecanum-wheeled robots [8,9,[36][37][38][39], while there is less research on the kinematic of a combination system and motion compensation of multiple-Mecanum-wheeled robot platforms. However, studying the kinematic and characteristics of the combined omnidirectional mobile system is the basis for studying the motion control, path planning, and navigation of the combination system.…”

On-Board Correction of Systematic Odometry Errors in Differential Robots

“…Robot calibration is a process by which robot positioning accuracy can be improved by modifying the robot positioning software, instead of changing or altering the design of the robot or its control system [5]. This process can be undertaken easily if precision exteroceptive sensors are present, such as LIDAR [6], sonar or depth sensor [7,8], and cameras [9,10]. Many studies have proposed calibration methods for industrial robots [11][12][13][14].…”

Novel Design of a Biaxial and Four-Wheeled Robot Capable of Steering

“…Ye Chang-long et al [7] designed an omnidirectional mobile robot with MY wheels. Qian J et al [8] designed and developed an omni-directional mobile robot oriented to an intelligent manufacturing system.Zi B et al [9]designed a winding hybrid-driven cable parallel manipulator. They proposed the mechanical structures or algorithms are too complex and difficult to control.…”