The Uranus Mobile Robot

Abstract

Abstract : The Uranus mobile robot was built by Carnegie Mellon University's Mobile Robot Lab to provide a general purpose mobile base to support research in to indoor robot navigation. As a base, it provides full mobility, along with support for a variety of payloads, such as sensors and computers. This report details the design and maintenance of Uranus's mechanical, electrical, and software systems, and is intended to serve two purposes. First, it acts as documentation for the robot. Second, it offers a perspective in to mobile robot design, showing the decision, tradeoffs, and evolution that are involved in the design of a system of this complexity. Hopefully, others building similar systems will be able to profit from our experience.