Robotic Walk Along Cart

Abstract

Many people all around are having problems by carrying heavy weights on their shoulders and travelling around with trolleys. In busy airports, shopping malls and many other places people often face difficulty with this issue. Housekeeping robots that localize on walking person and follow the path of the user can stand as an advantage to the posed problem. The robotic cart proposed here focuses on reducing the load the user carries. It develops a platform for sending and receiving a signal that would provide a simple and practical means for the robot to determine a path by following the user and avoiding obstacles using ultrasonic sensors and also the ability to self-localize. This reduces the tiring experience faced by people and makes them tension free. The key of the design is to use the Wi-Fi technology to transmit the location of the user to the cart and LoRa technology to give the location of the cart. Meanwhile, together with both the technologies, the proposed design achieves the high feasibility and flexibility of the controllable distance as it follows the user. As a result, the proposed system shows efficiency up to 88%. A follower robot application can be extended to a wide range of fields as in the case of porters at railway stations, loading and unloading goods at factories (civil and industrial fields) and as a helping hand for elderly people thus allowing them to avoid the goods they have to carry along.