Pure Rolling Steering System Design and Research for Wheeled Mobile Robot

Abstract

Abstract In order to solve the problem of the side slip of the wheeled mobile robot adopting the steering trapezium, a novel pure rolling steering system for wheeled mobile robot is designed. It takes advantage of synchronous belt characteristic with long-distance, variable-direction and precise transmission and is equipped with a dual power differential drive axle. This paper details the design points of the whole mechanism; sets up the kinematic models of four-wheeled Ackerman steering, crab movement, and pivot turn modes; and then the steering drive control strategies of various modes of the robot is established. A prototype equipped with a control system consisting of a control center, four steering motors, two drive motors, an electromagnetic clutch and four angle sensors is constructed. Finally, the test results for pivot turn and four-wheel minimum radius steering on the hard road shows that the trajectory slip error are less than 0.2% and 1.7%, respectively. This verifies clearly the correctness and effectiveness of the proposed pure rolling steering system for wheeled mobile robot.