Design, Assembly and Control of a Differential/Omnidirectional Mobile Robot through Additive Manufacturing

Although additive manufacturing is a relatively new technology, it has been widely accepted by industry and academia due to the wide variety of prototypes that can be built. Furthermore, using mobile robots to carry out different tasks allows greater flexibility than using manipulator robots. In tha...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Erick Axel Padilla-García, Raúl Dalí Cruz-Morales, Jaime González-Sierra, David Tinoco-Varela, María R. Lorenzo-Gerónimo
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2024-02-01
Series:Machines
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1702/12/3/163
Description
Summary:Although additive manufacturing is a relatively new technology, it has been widely accepted by industry and academia due to the wide variety of prototypes that can be built. Furthermore, using mobile robots to carry out different tasks allows greater flexibility than using manipulator robots. In that sense, and based on those above, this article focuses on the design and assembly of a multi-configurable mobile robot that is capable of changing from a differential to an omnidirectional configuration. For this purpose, a sequential mechatronic design/control methodology was implemented to obtain an affordable platform via additive manufacturing which is easily scalable and allows the user to change from one configuration to another. As a proof of concept, this change is made manually. Fabrication, construction, and assembly processes for both structures are presented. Then, a hierarchical control law is designed. In this sense and based on Lyapunov’s method, a low-level controller is developed to control the angular speed of the wheels to a desired angular speed, and a medium-level controller controls the robot’s attitude to follow a desired Cartesian trajectory. Finally, the control strategies are implemented in both prototype configurations, and through experimental results, the theoretical analysis and the construction of the mobile robot are validated.
ISSN:2075-1702