The development of a mobile robot equipped with a structured light range sensor

This paper describes the mechanism, control, sensor system, and navigation algorithm of a mobile robot. The robot is designed for use in indoor surroundings or factory environments rather than outdoor natural environments. Also an overview of the physical configuration of the mobile robot as well as a calibration algorithm of its sensor system, a structured light range sensor, is presented. Except for the global path planning algorithm, a guidance and a navigation algorithm with a local path planning algorithm are used to navigate the mobile robot. In the robot control system, the computer support is divided into a supervisor with image processing and local path planning and a slave with motor control. All processing of the mobile robot is performed on board. The feasibility study of the structured light range sensor calibration and the local path planning algorithm proposed for the robot's navigation was performed through simulation and experiments under several complicated environments.