Motion Control Analysis of a Spherical Robot as a Surveillance Robot

摘要

A robot is designed to be a helping tool for the human to work in the dirty, dull and dangerous environment, such as underwater, underground and disaster area. The most suitable type of robot for surveillance is a spherical robot. This type of robot has the ball-shaped, therefore minimize the contact to the ground, reduce friction, and energy consumption. All the components are shielded inside a shell; therefore it is possible to make this robot to be waterproof. One of the applications of this spherical robot is an industrial piping surveillance robot. The robot considered in this study is semi-autonomous where a user moves the robot through user interface installed in an android. The user can control the robot by examining the monitor. The input analysis of how the signal can move the robot is discussed in this paper. To prove the effectiveness of the proposed method, the robot is moved in an experimental setting including a pipe-like tunnel to test it. The robot moved and controlled smoothly, and it can maintain the position of the camera (robot head) always up to ensure the clear vision for the user.