Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Hiba A. Najim
• Iman S. Kareem
• Wisam E. Abdul-Lateef

Electromechanical Engineering Dept., University of Technology-Iraq, Alsina’a street, 10066 Baghdad, Iraq.

Abstract

As mobile robots have become widespread in indoor environments with narrow and crowded corridors, such as institutions, the demand for mobile robots has recently increased, especially for service purposes (homes, hospitals, and nursing homes for the elderly). The most important factor of autonomous navigation is the mobile robot's awareness of its surroundings, with the robot's ability to move from one place to another smoothly and safely in terms of avoiding obstacles. In this paper, a mobile robot with multi-directional wheels was designed to work in indoor environments and narrow corridors. SLAM was used to map the environment in which the robot operates, as well as determine the robot's location within this environment based on the data of the LIDAR sensor. The robot was controlled through the ROS robot operating system. In this research, we conducted a practical experiment for the robot's movement inside a corridor and mapped this corridor by SLAM.

Graphical Abstract

Highlights

• A mobile robot that can work in confined spaces was built and implemented.
• Using special wheels called Mecanum Wheels, the designed robot works in all directions without a steering device.
• The robot can identify and map unknown environments and localize itself within this map using SLAM.
• It is possible to develop and update the codes used in the robot's programming easily due to the use of ROS because it is open source.

Keywords

• Light Detection And Ranging (LIDAR)
• simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)
• robot operating system (ROS)

Main Subjects

• Mechanical