Designing and Developing Simple Low Cost Mobile Robots for Autonomous Navigation

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this azticle is to illustrate how it is possible to design and build low cost mobile robots by using only simple commercial electronic devices and toys. As suggested by Valentino Braitenberg [1] in his experiments on synthetic psychology we developed two simple and compact mobile robots, each capable of doing two different autonomous behaviors: the wall following (moving the robot at a constant distance from the wall on its left or right hand) and the obstacle avoidance (avoiding collision with obstacles during the path). Two different control systems have been developed and compared. The fast system is controlled by an analogical circuit obtained by using electronic components (transistors, diodes, resistors, capacitors ...) whereas, the second is controlled by a digital circuit which employs amicro-processor boazd. Those platforms allow the robot configuration to be easily adapted to the specific requirement of each application. Their strengths and limitations are also detailed. Both...