Development of Autonomous Mobile Robot Using Articulated Steering Vehicle and Lateral Guiding Method

This paper is discusses an autonomous mobile robot entered in the Real World Robotics Challenges 2014 (RWRC) in Tsukuba. Our project was to develop a wheelchair able to navigate stairs autonomously. Step 1 develops a center articulated vehicle, called the AR Chair, which has 4 wheels and a controller including LIDARs. The center articulated vehicle has a stiff structure and travels with the front and rear wheels on the same path, so there is no inner wheels difference. The robotic vehicle carries users weighing up to 100 kg. The autonomous controller is the same as the Smart Dump 7 combined with the RWRC 2013 to achieve the challenge, excluding the geometrical relationship of the steering angle and communication command for motor drivers to the AR Chair. The advantage of the robot is shown by experimental data from the RWRC 2014's final run.