Design, modelling and construction of a mobile Robot

Abstract

Automation gives efficiency to industrial processes and makes daily lives easier. Industries invest great amounts of money in automatic devices which imply an increase in the profit and quality of the services and products. One way to achieve automation is using AIVs (Autonomous Intelligent Vehicles) in production chains and storages. The aim of this project was to design and test an AIV or mobile robot, focusing on the logic development. This robot should move from one point to a target one avoiding fixed obstacles. To achieve this, an Arduino board was programmed and connected to three ultrasonic sensors and two stepper motors which allowed it to recognise its position and the environment. The design of the structure was drawn in Solidworks and built in an acrylic sheet, shaped using a laser cutter. The two main stages of design were: constant development of the logic and integrated robot test. The first stage consisted on checking the performance of each electronic component separately and improving the movement code from simple objectives, such as avoiding just one obstacle, to more complex ones until reaching the most desirable code for the robot. The second stage was putting it all together, the electronics and the structure, in order to accomplish the final movement tests. The final result was tested using different types of obstacles, distributed randomly in the space, and setting various target points. The robot completed the path correctly if the obstacles were the specific ones. This means that they had a rectangular shape and the enough dimensions to be detected by the sensors. Apart from this, the results show an actual AIV with a logic that could be used for logistic activities in a place which satisfies the conditions. Moreover, the developed code is a solid base to create a bigger and more complex logic that could lead to a wider industrial use.