Senor Maderita: A semi-omnidirectional mobile robot for training, development and research

Abstract

This paper presents Señor Maderita, a wheeled semi-omnidirectional steering robot for training, development and research applications. It was conceived as a modular prototype consisting on two main parts: a module for mobilization and other for processing and sensing. The robot has 4 independently steerable wheels with eight servo motors (2 for each wheel), and a servo controller. The processing/perception module has a microcontroller-based card for global control and some sensors for environment recognition. Multiple tests were conducted, comparing theoretically calculated trajectories with real tests. Also, some commercial platforms were evaluated. The experimental results show good performance of Señor Maderita in terms of its accuracy and reliability.