A Practical Approach to Control and Self-Localization of an Omni-Directional Mobile Robot

S. Ziaei-Rad, F. Janabi-Sharifi, M. Daneshpanah, A. Abdollahi, H. Ostadi, H. Samani

WSEAS Transactions on Systems and Control, Issue 5, Volume 3, pp. 413-424, 2008

ABSTRACT

Due to their advantages, omni-directional mobile robots have found many applications especially in robotic soccer competitions. Despite recent advances, effective control and self-localization of omni-directional mobile robots remain as important and challenging issues. In this work, a practical approach for control and self-localization of an omni-directional robot is proposed. For this purpose, a simplified model of the system is derived for fast tuning of the control system parameters. In particular, strategies for fast tuning of PID/PD coefficients for position and orientation control are devised. A vision-based self-localization and the conventional odometry systems are fused for robust self-localization. The methods have been tested in the RoboCup competition field using three Persia middle size omni-directional robots. The experimental results are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system and its comparison with a few other compatible approaches.

Keywords:

Omni-directional, Mobile robot, Control, Self-localization

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