Design and control of a variable structure robot

• Main Authors: Lei Guo, Liang Zhao, Yuan Song, Jikun Hu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2020-02-01
• Series: International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/1729881420903606

Because wheeled mobile robots have so many applications in warehouse logistics, improving their ability to adapt to the environment has been the subject of extensive research. To enhance the traffic and obstacle avoidance capabilities of wheeled robots, a wheeled mobile robot with a transformable chassis is proposed in this article for use in an automated warehouse. The robot can not only move in all directions but also change its chassis structure according to the specific warehouse environment. First, the robot structure is designed, and the motion modes of the robot are analyzed. After kinematics analysis is performed, a kinematics model is presented. In addition, with the goal of trajectory tracking and indoor positioning, a sliding mode controller and an extended Kalman filter controller are designed. Then, the effectiveness of the kinematics model and the controller design is verified by computer simulation. Finally, a physical prototype of the robot is built and the effectiveness of the robot is demonstrated through experiments.