The development of mobile robots pursues rapidity and scalability, which generally involves conventional development challenges such as autonomous navigation and tracking. The robot's intelligent and autonomous functions can be realized quickly and without human factors, enabling intelligent robot applications to truly be realized.
Based on this, before fully realizing the robot's functional requirements, development engineers often need to select the key component of the mobile robot: the mobile robot platform. A suitable mobile robot platform with rapid secondary development capabilities is undoubtedly very helpful in reproducing these functions.
How quickly and conveniently can AgileX Robotics help customers complete secondary development? Let's take a look at how the team from the School of Control Science and Engineering at Zhejiang University (hereafter referred to as the School of Control) used the AgileX mobile robot platform to quickly replicate conventional robot functions within a week.
Due to research and development needs, the School of Control at Zhejiang University purchased a robot chassis: HUNTER, as shown in Figure 1. The HUNTER used an Ackerman mechanical structure with a built-in underlying control program. It only needs to be connected to the control box we developed via the CAN bus to control the chassis, greatly improving development efficiency.
Figure 1 HUNTER robot chassis (Click on the image for more information)
Based on the HUNTER robot, a multi-line lidar, an IMU and a camera were installed, and it took engineers only a week to reproduce the conventional robot functions: tracking, 3D mapping, autonomous navigation, remote control, etc., the overall structure of the robot has been shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2 The general structure of the robot
Function instruction
01 Following
The following feature was previously implemented on the quadruped robot, adding a local navigation obstacle avoidance function. You can see that the robot's movement effect is still quite good.
Video 1 The quadruped robot's tracking function reappeared
For the robot's vibration, the Control School team used IMU data to optimize the following program. Video 2 shows an anti-shake test.
Video 2 Anti-vibration test
Video 3 shows the following function on the HUNTER chassis. The following function is complete and can also be used to extend the reverse parking function.
Video 3: The HUNTER robot's tracking function reappears
02 3D Mapping
The 3D mapping function has two modes: offline and online. Offline mode involves collecting sensor data first and then automatically building a 3D map using a background mapping program. Online mode builds the map while collecting sensor data. The map construction is shown in Video 4.
Video 4: The HUNTER robot's mapping function reappears
03 Local navigation
Video 5 discusses the local navigation function. This type of local navigation can create a planned route without using map data or past data. Compared with conventional static map planning, the advantage is that the map doesn't need to be constructed and can be used very comfortably in an unfamiliar environment.
Video 5 The function reappeared local navigation of the HUNTER robot
It can be seen that through the above playback functions, the robot has the foundation for engineering implementation. Selecting a suitable mobile robot platform with rapid secondary development capabilities not only greatly shortens the development cycle but also expands the demonstration and practical application of robots, such as safety inspection, logistics and transportation, disinfection, and epidemic prevention. At the same time, the mobile robot platform is comprehensive and efficient enough to support various systems and the ROS community. If you would like to learn more about this customer case, you can contact the person using the contact information below.
Name: Zhichen Xu
Contract: 18868805838
Email: 807552127@qq.com
