Development of a Mobile Platform with IoT for LIDAR

Abstract

Nowadays, interior scanning is very significant in mobile robot applications because it helps humans to monitor, study and investigate the environments, especially the challenging ones with clutter, hazardous, unexplored, dynamic, and others. A LIDAR can be utilised to perform the task; however, suitable mobile platform should be accompanying it to allow mobility while collecting data representing the environment. This paper shows the process of developing a suitable mobile platform for a low-cost laser rangefinder, RP LIDAR from SLAMTEC with its scanning performance. The mobile platform used in this project is an Arduino Uno R3 4WD mobile robot. L298 H-Bridge IC and HC-05 Bluetooth module is implemented on the robot to make the user able to control its movement through a mobile application. MIT app inventor is used to develop the mobile application. Through the application, user can control the mobile robot with the LIDAR to move around the selected indoor area to scan its environment. To show the scanning results, MATLAB will be used to plot the map. Analysis from the plotting show good mapping results and similar to the real environment, thus presenting its potential to be used in the above-mentioned situations.