Side-Turning Chassis of a Mobile Robot: Design and Development, Selection of an Electric Drive and Navigation System, Practical Implementation

The article is devoted to a topical research related to the design and development of robot devices, their navigation systems and electric drives. As part of the research work of the student science club, the authors have developed a side-rotating chassis for an experimental model of a mobile robot cleaner. The engineering design is described and kinematic structure of chassis is presented. A direct current motor was chosen as an electric drive due to the ease of regulating its coordinates. A pulse width modulation is used to control the direct current motor. In practice, the pulse width modulation controller was implemented using the Arduino Uno microcontroller. In the Arduino software envelope, a program was developed to automatically control the speed of the motor rotation according to the desired schedule. As a result of analysis and theoretical studies, two methods were chosen as the robot's navigation system: the reflected wave method and the inertial method. The advantages and disadvantages of each of them are presented. A wave sensing installation with the addition of an inertial component to the model has been developed. The advantages of such a combined navigation system are described. The main drawbacks were also noted, which were solved by the development of a fundamentally new integrated system of inertial probe navigation, in which a more powerful Arduino Mega microcontroller was used. The practical implementation of the side-rotating chassis is presented. Conclusions are made about the importance of research and about possible continuation of the project to create an experimental model of a mobile robot.