Adaptive geometry track design and implementation for an all terrain mobile robot

Abstract

The autonomous mobile robot has some limitations for movement in ragged terrain. In some situations, it cannot move through the required target trajectories because of inappropriate type of driving system. To reduce this limitation, a new inventive concept of mechanism is presented in this paper. The mechanism is designed in a triangular shaped tracking wheel in which the inner construction can be manipulated depending on that particular terrain, thus this type of wheel is likely to move through all terrain. Four ball screws, which is the most important mechanism of the robot. This mechanism is extruded and contracted in order to make tight tracking belt at the time of robot climbing up and down on stair. In tracking wheel system, total 12 DC motors are used, out of which 6 DC motors are used for angular adjustment, 4 DC motors are used for the extrusion as well as contraction and the last 2 DC motors are used for driving the tracking wheels. Each DC motor is controlled by a microcontroller (Atmel AT89C2051) and a personal computer is used for interaction with graphical user interfaces that allows communication with all the microcontrollers via serial communication RS-485.