Control architecture for a three-wheeled roller robot

Abstract

We present the implementation of an architecture for the distributed control of an omnidirectional mobile robot driven by stepper motors. We have developed the kinematic modelling of such a robot from which control and sensor equations are derived. These relations permit us to map in time, movements with respect to a fixed floor frame into wheels movements, and vice versa. A hierarchical control model has been selected for real time computation of control algorithm and parallel synchronisation of motors movement. It consists on a low cost specific hardware which includes one master processor (a PC) plus three slave microcontrollers (8051).