Title: Simulation of an optical tracking control system of a differentially-driven wheeled robot

Authors: Loren Yeo, Sabu John, John Mo

Addresses: School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. ' School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia. ' School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, RMIT University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia

Abstract: Reliable tracking control of autonomous wheeled mobile robots has long been a goal of researchers. To improve tracking precision, expensive sensor systems along with complicated algorithms are often used. This paper proposes a relatively simple and inexpensive method that maintains a good level of accuracy. This is accomplished by the use of optical sensors that are found in the common computer mouse. An additional advantage of this set-up is that the basic friction circle can be used instead of complex friction modelling. The entire system is dynamically modelled in MATLAB^® and Simulink^®.

Keywords: wheeled robots; mobile robots; WMR; optical tracking; tracking control; kinematic modelling; dynamic modelling; computer simulation; optical sensors; autonomous robots; computer mouse.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAET.2010.029593

International Journal of Computer Aided Engineering and Technology, 2010 Vol.2 No.1, pp.15 - 29

Published online: 30 Nov 2009 *

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