Following A Wall With A Mobile Robot Using Ultrasonic Sensors

摘要

In this paper the wall-following control of a mobile robot is discussed. In literature, mostly vision systems are used to solve this problem. Typically, these systems provide an image of the environment in front of the robot. With this information the next (local) part of the trajectory is planned. Here, a mobile robot is considered without a sensor system to perform such a ‘look-ahead’ strategy. The wall-following problem is Characterized by maintaining a constant distance to the wall, which should be possible using a distance measuring sensor only. Ultrasonic sensors are cheap and fairly simple to use in this case. The main problem is the calculation of the distance and the orientation of the robot with respect to the wall from the sensor data. This is solved by the use of an observer. The controller has been verified by means of experiments. The results show a good performance with emrs of a few millimetres from the desired distance to the wall.