Machine Vision Mobile Robot for Autonomous Cargo Transportation – Part 1. Configuration, Communication and Control

In this paper, we describe the development of a cargo-carrying system consisting of a four-wheeled mobile platform, a visual sensor, a control unit and its associated software. The mechanical part of the platform includes a chassis preassembled with two encoded DC motors with suspension, a dedicated motherboard, a motor driver, a DC/DC converter and supplemental hardware. For the main control unit we use a Raspberry Pi 4 model B+ while the image capture is performed by a Raspberry Pi Camera Module 3. The first part of our work presents the camera connections and communication through CSI2 protocol using the LVDS standard, as well as the mechanical chassis and motors organization. General information about the control logic is given while more detailed explanations are included in the second part of the paper where we also share our experimental work and analysis.