Design and Simulation of an Autonomous Mobile Robot(ScoBot): Locomotion, Perception, Navigation

Mobile robots are extensively employed for several industrial, research, and consumer services tasks. This paper proposes the design and simulation of an Autonomous Mobile Robot (AMR) named “ScoBot (abbreviation for Scorpion Robot)”. It is a differential drive-based mobile robot whose task is to autonomously navigate the environment to traverse from one place to another without human intervention (i.e., Locomotion). At the same time, avoid the obstacles placed in the environment (i.e., Perception task) with the help of an onboard LIDAR sensor. The Adaptive Monte Carlo Localisation (AMCL) algorithm is employed for the robot's localisation. The path planning operations are handled with the help of a local planner (Dynamic-Window Analysis approach) and a global planner (Dijkstra algorithm). The design of the robot is carried out using 3D CAD modelling software. It is exported as a URDF(Universal Robot Description Format) file so that all the above-said tasks on the simulation of the autonomous motion capabilities of the robot are employed in ROS(Robotic Operating System) and Gazebo environments. Finally, the results of the simulations are observed both in the Gazebo and the live actions/ working of the employed algorithms are monitored through Rviz (ROS visualisation).