| dc.description.abstract | A navigation system developed for an omni-directional wheeled mobile robot, called
the Omnibot, is presented. This system is developed to enable the Omnibot to autonomously navigate, in a collision-free manner, along predefined paths in indoor
structured office or factory-like environments.
The navigation system is composed of four integrated subsystems: localization, path-
following, velocity control, and obstacle detection. The path-following subsystem is
responsible for driving the Omnibot along a given path based on feedback about its
location relative to its environment. A localization system that uses a combination
of odometry and a novel indoor GPS-like system provides the necessary estimates
of the Omnibot's position and orientation (i.e., pose). Using the pose updates from
the localization subsystem, the path-following subsystem is able to compute motion
commands to drive the Omnibot along the path. Execution of these motion commands
is performed by the velocity control subsystem, which uses feedback control to regulate
the angular velocities of the motors driving the Omnibot's wheels to produce the
required motion of the robot. To ensure collision-free navigation, the Omnibot is
equipped with an array of infrared distance sensors for detecting obstacles around
its perimeter. Interaction between a human operator and the Omnibot is facilitated
with a user-control interface running on a remote workstation. The interface allows
the operator to visualize the Omnibot's location within a 3D model of its indoor
workspace and provides a means to input commands.
Testing of the developed system is performed, and the results confirm its e effectiveness
at enabling the Omnibot to perform collision-free autonomous navigation in an indoor
structured environment. | en |
