Positioning approach of a spherical rolling robot

摘要

In comparison to other mobile robots, spherical rolling robots offer greater mobility, stability, and scope for operation in hazardous environments. Spherical rolling robots have been attracting much attention in not only mechanical but also control literature recently, due to both their relevance to practical applications, and to the difficulties in the analysis and control of these robots. The positioning of a spherical rolling robot at an arbitrary pose and at any time is one of the fundamental and difficult problems in the research of spherical rolling robots. Because spherical rolling robot touches the floor at a point, the positioning is difficult, especially when it moves at a high speed. Up to now, this problem has not been solved perfectly. In this paper, we present an efficient positioning approach for a spherical rolling robot. Based on the approach, a moving spherical rolling robot can be positioned at an arbitrary pose and at any time.