EC7010:

Autonomous Mobile Robots

and Robot Intelligence
Dr. Lilantha Samaranayake
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Faculty of Engineering
University of Peradeniya
[email protected], +94812393426
Robot Taxonomy
 The Japanese Industrial Robot Association gives the
following classification of robots:
 Class 1: Manual Handling Device
 Class 2: Fixed Sequence Robot
 Class 3: Variable Sequence Robot
 Class 4: Playback Robot
 Class 5: Numerical Control Robot
 Class 6: Intelligent Robot
 Robot Taxonomy
 We are primarily interested in intelligent robots and can
break these down simply as follows:
 Manipulator robots
 Humanoid robots
 Mobile robots
 We will cover only Mobile robots in this course
 Manipulator Robots
 Physically anchored to their
workplace
 Manipulator motion usually
involves an entire chain of
controllable joints, enabling
such robots to place their
effectors in any position
within the workplace
 Manipulators are by far the most common type of
industrial robots - a 2 billion dollar industry!
 Humanoid Robots
 Hybrid robot: a mobile robot equipped with manipulators
 Hybrids can apply their effectors further a-field then
anchored manipulators
 However, their task is made harder because they don’t
have the rigidity that the anchor provides
 Example: HONDA ASIMO

http://world.honda.com/worldnews/2014/c140718All-New-ASIMO-Europe.html
 Mobile Robots
 We can divide mobile robots into the following categories:
 Wheeled robots
 Legged robots
 Aerial robots (UAVs)
 Others
Wheeled Robots
Legged Robots
Aerial Robots
Other Mobile Robots
 Components
 The major components of a mobile robot are:
 Power supply
 Sensors Power Control

 Control

 Actuators

Sensors Actuators

Environment
 Components (cont…)
 Power Supply: the power plant and associated power
transmission system, such as a battery with associated
equipment, or a power supply unit which converts electricity
from the mains to appropriate power requirements
 Sensors: Including lasers, cameras, sonar and microphones,
sensors enable robots to collect information about their own
state and the state of their environment
 Components (cont…)
 Actuators: devices which transduce power into kinetic energy or
movement
 Types of actuators include:
 Electric motors
 Pneumatic actuation (using compressed gas)
 Hydraulic actuation (using pressurized fluids)
 Robotic end effectors (e.g. grippers)
 Control Subsystem: responsible for evaluating the information
collected and processed by sensors and for planning actions
 Robot Control Mechanisms
 Robots may be controlled:
 Directly by a human, such as remotely-controlled bomb-
disposal robots, robotic arms, or shuttles
 Autonomously according to their own decision making ability,
provided by artificial intelligence
 Many robots fall in-between these extremes, being controlled by
pre-programmed computers
General Control Scheme for Mobile
Robot Systems
Knowledge, Mission
Data Base Commands

Localization "Position" Cognition

Map Building Global Map Path Planning

Environment Model Path

Local Map

Information Path
Extraction Execution

Motion Control
Perception

Raw data Actuator Commands

Sensing Acting

Real World
Environment
Wheeled Mobile Robots
 Wheeled Mobile Robots (WMR)
 Combination of various physical (hardware) and
computational (software) components

 A collection of subsystems:
 Locomotion: how the robot moves through its environment
 Sensing: how the robot measures properties of itself and its
environment
 Control: how the robot generate physical actions
 Reasoning: how the robot maps measurements into actions
 Communication: how the robots communicate with each other or
with an outside operator
 Mobile Robot Locomotion
 Locomotion — the process of causing an robot to move.
 In order to produce motion, forces must be applied to the
robot
 Dynamics – study of motion in which these forces are modeled
 Deals with the relationship between force and motions.
 Kinematics – study of the mathematics of motion without
considering the forces that affect the motion.
 Deals with the geometric relationships that govern the
system
 Deals with the relationship between control parameters and
the behavior of a system.
Notation

Posture: position(x, y) and orientation 

Non-holonomic constraint
So what does that mean?
Your robot can move in some directions (forwards
and backwards), but not others (side to side).

The robot can instantly

move forward and back,
but can not move to the
right or left without the Parallel parking,
wheels slipping. Series of maneuvers
Idealized Rolling Wheel
 Assumptions:
 No slip occurs in the orthogonal
direction of rolling (non-slipping).
 No translation slip occurs between
the wheel and the floor (pure
rolling).
 At most one steering link per
Non-slipping and pure rolling wheel with the steering axis
perpendicular to the floor.
 Wheel parameters:
 r = wheel radius
 v = wheel linear velocity
 w = wheel angular velocity
 t = steering velocity
Lateral slip
 Wheel Types
Fixed wheel Centered orientable wheel

Off-centered orientable wheel

(Castor wheel) Swedish wheel
(omnidirectional property)
Examples of Wheeled Mobile Robots
 Smooth motion
 Risk of slipping
 Some times use roller-ball
Bi-wheel type robot to make balance

 Exact straight motion

 Robust to slipping
 Inexact modeling of turning
Caterpillar type robot

 Free motion
 Complex structure
 Weakness of the frame
Omnidirectional robot
 Mobile Robot Locomotion
 Instantaneous center of rotation (ICR) or
Instantaneous center of curvature (ICC)
 A cross point of all axes of the wheels
 Mobile Robot Locomotion
 Differential Drive
 two driving wheels (plus roller-ball for balance)
 simplest drive mechanism
 sensitive to the relative velocity of the two wheels (small
error result in different trajectories, not just speed)
 Tricycle
 Steering wheel with two rear wheels
 cannot turn 90º
 limited radius of curvature
 Synchronous Drive
 Omni-directional
 Car Drive (Ackerman Steering)
Differential Drive

 Posture of the robot  Control input

v : Linear velocity of the robot
(x,y) : Position of the robot
w : Angular velocity of the robot
: Orientation of the robot
(notice: not for each wheel)
Differential Drive
VR (t ) – linear velocity of right wheel
VL (t ) – linear velocity of left wheel
r – nominal radius of each wheel
R – instantaneous curvature radius of the robot trajectory
(distance from ICC to the midpoint between the two wheels).

Property: At each time instant,

the left and right wheels must
follow a trajectory that moves
around the ICC at the same
angular rate , i.e.,
L
 ( R  )  VR
2
L
 ( R  )  VL
2
Differential Drive
Posture Kinematics Model (in world frame)
 Relation between the control input and speed of wheels

 Kinematic equation

 Nonholonomic constraint

H : A unit vector orthogonal to the plane of wheels

Differential Drive
Configuration Kinematics Model (in robot frame)
 Basic Motion Control

 Instantaneous center of rotation

R : Radius of rotation

 Straight motion
R = Infinity V R = VL

 Rotational motion
R= 0 VR = -VL
 Tricycle
 Three wheels: two rear wheels and one front wheel
 Steering and power are provided through the front wheel
 control variables:
 steering direction α(t)
 angular velocity of steering wheel ws(t)

The ICC must lie on

the line that passes
through, and is
perpendicular to, the
fixed rear wheels
 Tricycle
 If the steering wheel is set to an angle α(t) from the
straight-line direction, the tricycle will rotate with angular
velocity w(t) about a point lying a distance R along the line
perpendicular to and passing through the rear wheels.
Tricycle

-configuration kinematics model

Tricycle
Tricycle
Kinematics model in the world frame
-Posture kinematics model
 Synchronous Drive

 In a synchronous drive robot, each wheel is capable of being

driven and steered.
 Typical configurations
 Three steered wheels arranged as vertices of an equilateral
 Triangle often surmounted by a cylindrical platform
 All the wheels turn and drive in unison
 This leads to a holonomic behavior
Synchronous Drive
 Synchronous Drive
 All the wheels turn in unison
 All of the three wheels point in the same direction and
turn at the same rate
 This is typically achieved through the use of a complex
collection of belts that physically link the wheels
together
 The vehicle controls the direction in which the wheels
point and the rate at which they roll
 Because all the wheels remain parallel the synchro drive
always rotate about the center of the robot
 The synchro drive robot has the ability to control the
orientation θ of their pose directly.
 Synchronous Drive
 Control variables (independent)
 v(t), w(t)
 Synchronous Drive
 Particular cases:
 v(t)=0, w(t)=w during a time
interval ∆t, The robot rotates
in place by an amount w ∆t .
 v(t)=v,w(t)=0 during a time
interval ∆t , the robot moves
in the direction its pointing a
distance v ∆t.
Omni-directional

Swedish Wheel
 Car Drive (Ackerman Steering)
 Used in motor vehicles, the inside front wheel is rotated
slightly sharper than the outside wheel (reduces tire
slippage).
 Ackerman steering provides a fairly accurate dead-
reckoning solution while supporting traction and ground
clearance.
 Generally the method of choice for outdoor autonomous
vehicles.
 Ackerman Steering
 The Ackerman Steering equation:
 cot i- cot o=d/l
 where
d = lateral wheel separation
l = longitudinal wheel separation
 i = relative angle of inside wheel
 o = relative angle of outside wheel
Ackerman Steering