Slosh Measuring Sensor System for Liquid-Carrying Robots

Abstract

Liquid-carrying robots require slosh suppression methods to improve their performance. To design these systems requires effective slosh measurement. State-of-the-Art slosh estimation methods have limitations, which include solely handling unidirectional motion or relying on theoretical models. This letter proposes a novel sensor array for measuring sloshing in liquid-carrying mobile robots. The proposed system offers two key contributions: first, it enables comprehensive measurement and visualization of sloshing during omnidirectional movements, and second, it provides a compact and seamless integration into mobile robots, enabling them to mitigate the adverse effects of sloshing. The sensor system has been developed using 14 time-of-flight range sensors. The range sensors are connected to an Arduino Mega through I $^{2}$ C communication. A 3-D visualization method has also been developed to visualize the sloshing. The sensor array was integrated into a mobile robot for validation. Utilizing the 3-D visualization method, the sensor system can reconstruct the liquid surface with a sampling rate of 17.8 Hz. The experimental results confirm that the proposed sensor system effectively measures sloshing during omnidirectional movement of the robot.