Structural and Dynamic Analysis of a Wheeled Mobile Robot with different Wheel Configurations

Abstract

Design of a Wheeled Mobile Robot (WMR), structural analysis and description of the dynamics of the mobile robot with two drive wheels and two distinct configurations for caster wheels are proposed in the paper. The first configuration is with two casters and the second one is with four caster wheels. The commencement of the work is with designing the architecture of the robot. First, the designed structures have been analyzed using a Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software to be sure of the robot's operation under severe static and dynamic conditions. Then, a dynamic analysis is performed for both of configurations and motion equations are obtained. Lastly, the operation of the robot is examined considering the stress distribution of the robot and the compulsory torques for each drive wheel, where the robot is moving on a certain circuitous path.