Prototyping a wheeled mobile robot embedding multiple sensors and agent-based control system

This work reports the development and prototyping of an autonomous wheeled mobile robot. In order to guarantee this autonomy, the prototype robot is equipped with rive types of sensors, which are shaft encoders, ultrasonic transducers, infrared proximity sensors, contact sensors and monocular vision. These sensors interact among themselves to get accurate information about the surrounding environment in order to allow the robot to navigate safely. As an experiment to demonstrate some capabilities of the prototype robot under construction, a behavior called Exploration is here described, which is designed to be part of the hierarchic control layers of the agent-based control system being implemented. This behavior is now active, so that the robot is able to navigate while avoiding obstacles in its path, as exemplified.