Follower Robot Research Articles

Implementation of a 3-wheeled Wall Following Robot Navigation System using Coppelia

This article will design a controller for a three-wheeled wall-following robot based on Copalia software. The problem with the wall-following robot is how to control a follower robot to move constantly along the wall in the intended direction. The robot controller uses Sugeno fuzzy logic as a rule base for stationary and moving states. This controller is created through distance and orientation navigation. Both are estimated by the robot model and corrected by the sensor measurement results. In cases where the wall is not available, for example, an open door, the robot will stop then there will be feedback to take the next step. The designed controller has been verified experimentally, where the results show an error rate of five millimeters from the actual distance

Grey-box modelling and fuzzy logic control of a Leader–Follower robot manipulator system: A hybrid Grey Wolf–Whale Optimisation approach

This study presents the development of a grey-box modelling approach and fuzzy logic control for real time trajectory control of an experimental four degree-of-freedom Leader–Follower​ Robot (LFR) manipulator system using a hybrid optimisation algorithm, known as Grey Wolf Optimiser (GWO) - Whale Optimisation Algorithm (WOA). The approach has advantages in achieving an accurate model of the LFR manipulator system, and together with a better trajectory tracking performance. In the first instance, the white box model is formed by modelling the dynamics of the follower manipulator using the Euler–Lagrange formulation. This white-box model is then improved upon by re-tuning the model’s parameters using GWO-WOA and experimental data from the real LFR manipulator system, thus forming the grey-box model. A minimum improvement of 73.9% is achieved by the grey-box model in comparison to the white-box model. In the latter part of this investigation, the developed grey-box model is used for the design, tuning and real-time implementation of a fuzzy PD＋I controller on the experimental LFR manipulator system. A 78% improvement in the total mean squared error is realised after tuning the membership functions of the fuzzy logic controller using GWO-WOA. Experimental results show that the approach significantly improves the trajectory tracking performance of the LFR manipulator system in terms of mean squared error, steady state error and time delay.

RANCANG BANGUN ROBOT LINE FOLLOWER PEMADAM API BERBASIS MIKROKONTROLLER ATMEGA 16

The fire area is not always in an easily accessible place, under certain conditions, there are times when it is not possible for humans to extinguish fires in the event of a fire, so certain smarter devices need to have the ability to detect and extinguish fires, namely Fire Extinguisher Robot. Robot Line Follower Fire Extinguisher designed by the author, works walking to find hotspots, if the sensor gets hot temperatures or hotspots, then the ic microcomtroller stops the dc motor, then another dc motor will be active to turn on the fan or fan. The method in this paper begins with designing a robot using the Proteus 8 simulator, making a robot, finally conducting a test and measurement. This study uses three dc motors, one dc motor to simulate the open lid or activate a fan or fan, two dc motorsto run the robot. The output of this robot is a line follower robot that serves to extinguish the fire

Distributed Control of Nonholonomic Robots Without Global Position Measurements Subject to Unknown Slippage Constraints

This paper studies the fully distributed formation control problem of multi-robot systems without global position measurements subject to unknown longitudinal slippage constraints. It is difficult for robots to obtain accurate and stable global position information in many cases, such as when indoors, tunnels and any other environments where GPS (global positioning system) is denied, thus it is meaningful to overcome the dependence on global position information. Additionally, unknown slippage, which is hard to avoid for wheeled robots due to the existence of ice, sand, or muddy roads, can not only affect the control performance of wheeled robot, but also limits the application scene of wheeled mobile robots. To solve both problems, a fully distributed finite time state observer which does not require any global position information is proposed, such that each follower robot can estimate the leader's states within finite time. The distributed adaptive controllers are further designed for each follower robot such that the desired formation can be achieved while overcoming the effect of unknown slippage. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed observer and control laws are verified by simulation results.

Fuzzy Integral Sliding Mode Observer-Based Formation Control of Mobile Robots With Kinematic Disturbance and Unknown Leader and Follower Velocities

Fuzzy integral sliding mode observer (FISMO) based leader-follower formation control with the use of ceiling-mounted camera information is proposed for mobile robots with kinematic disturbance and no information of the velocities of leader and follower robots. Using only the posture information of both the leader and follower robots obtained from the camera sensor, the follower robot is made to follow the trajectory of a target robot that is introduced to render the leader-follower formation control more efficient. As a result, a kinematic tracking error model is proposed in terms of both the posture error between the target and follower robots and the posture error between the origin of the inertial reference frame and follower robot. Because the kinematic disturbance and the velocities of the leader and follower robots are not available, an FISMO is designed to simultaneously estimate the kinematic disturbance as well as the linear and angular velocities of the leader and follower robots. FISMO-based leader-follower output feedback formation control is then proposed based on the estimates of the kinematic disturbance and velocities and the backstepping-like feedback linearization tracking control. The experimental results comparing the proposed FISMO-based method with the robust distance-based tracking control method and integral sliding mode observer (ISMO)-based method are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Experimental Verification of Method to Estimate Operating Intention for Leader-Follower Robot

A leader-follower robot that maintains the safety of operator by remote control is effective for in extreme environments. The follower robot needs to respond to the motion of the operator, but it is also necessary to estimate the operation intention in order to maintain safety. In this research, during operation under several situations, the current operation intention is estimated from sensory input and the history of operation intention. In addition, the operation target value is determined by the operation intention for the controlling of the follower robot’s motion and some sensors’ values. That the operation target values can be calculated is verified by simulated experiments.

Cooperative Transport of a Suspended Payload via Two Aerial Robots With Inertial Sensing

In this article, we address the problem of aerial transport of a suspended payload by two vehicles with minimal sensing and computational requirements. Herein, the leader-follower paradigm is adopted, allowing the follower robot to estimate and stabilize the formation using only feedback from its onboard inertial sensor. This is achieved through an analysis of the underlying dynamics of the coupled system. The gained insights lead to the introduction of a two-stage Kalman-based estimation strategy and the linear control laws that are capable of robustly dealing with the underactuated leader-payload-follower system. The vision-less methods have been verified through a series of flight experiments. The efficiency and the robustness of the schemes enable the cooperative payload transport to be accomplished by two sub-100-g robots with highly limited computational power in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Control of mobile robot formations using A-star algorithm and artificial potential fields

Formations or groups of robots become essential in cases where a single robot is insufficient to satisfy a given task. With an increasingly automated world, studies on various topics related to robotics have been carried out in both the industrial and academic arenas. In this paper, the control of the formation of differential mobile robots based on the leader-follower approach is presented. The leader's movement is based on the least cost path obtained by the A-star algorithm, thus ensuring a safe and shortest possible route for the leader. Follower robots track the leader's position in real time. Based on this information and the desired distance and angle values, the leader robot is followed. To ensure that the followers do not collide with each other and with the obstacles in the environment, a controller based on Artificial Potential Fields is designed. Stability analysis using Lyapunov theory is performed on the linearized model of the system. To verify the implemented technique, a simulator was designed using the MATLAB programming language. Seven experiments are conducted under different conditions to show the performance of the approach. The distance and orientation errors are less than 0.1 meters and 0.1 radians, respectively. Overall, mobile robots are able to reach the goal position, maintaining the desired formation, in finite time.

The Application of Leader Following Method and Cubic Polynomial Path Planning Algorithm with Formation Control on Multi-Robot Systems

In this study, the movement of mobile robots on a certain path by preserving their formation and with a leader-follower was examined. Knowing the initial and final positions and orientations of the leader robot, the cubic polynomial was used and the positions of the leader at all points on the path were found. Then, the positions, where the followers were found with the homogeneous transformations, were calculated in order to provide the equilateral triangle formation. The velocity profile of the leader was calculated with certain calculations by determining the maximum velocity for the leader. Controller has been designed for the leader's right and left motors. In order to find the velocity of the follower robots, it was calculated by using the position information that the robots should be at a certain moment. The resulting graphics showed how the robots would create a path at certain angles. The distance values that should be between the robots and the location information from the UWB (Ultra-wideband) were shown on the Matlab graphics. The calculated linear velocities and desired velocities of the leader and follower robots are shown graphically. In the control diagram created for the left and right motors of the leader robot, it has been shown how the linear and angular velocities are affected by PID.

Comparative Study of Computer Vision Based Line Followers Using Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano

The line follower robot is a mobile robot which can navigate and traverse to another place by following a trajectory which is generally in the form of black or white lines. This robot can also assist human in carrying out transportation and industrial automation. However, this robot also has several challenges with regard to the calibration issue, incompatibility on wavy surfaces, and also the light sensor placement due to the line width variation. Robot vision utilizes image processing and computer vision technology for recognizing objects and controlling the robot motion. This study discusses the implementation of vision based line follower robot using a camera as the only sensor used to capture objects. A comparison of robot performance employing different CPU controllers, namely Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano, is made. The image processing uses an edge detection method which detect the border to discriminate two image areas and mark different parts. This method aims to enable the robot to control its motion based on the object captured by the webcam. The results show that the accuracies of the robot employing the Raspberry Pi and Jetson Nano are 96% and 98%, respectively.

A Decentralized Cluster Formation Containment Framework for Multirobot Systems

Cooperative control of multirobot systems (MRSs) has earned significant research interest over the past two decades due to its potential applications in multidisciplinary engineering problems. In contrast to a single specialized robot, the MRS can be designed to offer flexibility, reconfigurability, robustness to faults, and cost-effectiveness in solving complex and challenging tasks. In this article, we aim to develop a unified cluster formation containment coordination framework for networked robots that can be decomposed into two layers containing the leaders and the followers. According to the proposed methodology, the leader robots are first distributed into a set of distinct and nonoverlapping clusters depending on the positions and priorities of the targets exploiting a game-theoretic rule. Then, they are steered to attain the desired formations around the corresponding targets. Subsequently, the follower robots are made to converge into the convex hull spanned by the leaders of the individual clusters. A prototype search and rescue operation is considered to highlight the usefulness of the proposed coordination framework. Furthermore, real-time hardware experiments were conducted on miniature mobile robots to validate the feasibility of the theoretical results.

Fixed-time formation tracking for multiple nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots based on distributed observer

This paper studies the distributed fixed-time formation tracking problem of multiple nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots system over directed fixed and switching topologies. Through a classical nonlinear transformation, the formation control problem is transformed into a consensus problem. New control protocols based on a distributed observer are proposed. The directed communication topology between multiple nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots is considered. Some sufficient conditions of multiple robots achieving the desired formation shape are given. All follower robots can form the desired formation shape within a fixed settling time and make the leader in the geometric center of the formation. By adopting graph theory and fixed-time stability theory, an upper bound of settling time that is independent of the system’s initial states is obtained. Finally, two examples are presented to illustrate the correctness of the main results.

Obstacle Avoidance Using CTC and Virtual Structure for Leader-Follower Formation on Mobile Robot

This research examined the development of the combination of virtual structure and leader-follower as an obstacle avoidance method in the formation control of a mobile robot. The formation of the robots are designed with the Separation Bearing Control (SBC) approach between the leader robot (RL) and the virtual robot (RV). The virtual robot is used as a virtual follower and a reference trajectory for the follower robot (RF). When the follower robot detects an obstacle, the follower robot trajectory is adjusted using a trajectory planner for obstacle avoidance. After passing the obstacle, the follower robot will track its position back in formation using virtual robot position and heading as reference. Leader robot and follower are perturbed by disturbances. In order to ensure the achievement of small error tracking, a controller is designed using the integration of kinematic and dynamics controllers with disturbance observer. The kinematic and dynamics controllers are designed using input-output linearisation (IOL) method and computed torque control (CTC). The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the simulation result.Keywords: CTC, leader follower, obstacle avoidance, SBC, virtual structure.

Adaptive Secure Control for Leader-Follower Formation of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots in the Presence of Uncertainty and Deception Attacks

This paper addresses an adaptive secure control problem for the leader-follower formation of nonholonomic mobile robots in the presence of uncertainty and deception attacks. It is assumed that the false data of the leader robot’s information attacked by the adversary is transmitted to the follower robot through the network, and the dynamic model of each robot has uncertainty, such as unknown nonlinearity and external disturbances. A robust, adaptive secure control strategy compensating for false data and uncertainty is developed to accomplish the desired formation of nonholonomic mobile robots. An adaptive compensation mechanism is derived to remove the effects of time-varying attack signals and system uncertainties in the proposed control scheme. Although unknown deception attacks are injected to the leader’s velocities and the model nonlinearities of robots are unknown, the boundedness and convergence of formation tracking errors of the proposed adaptive control system are analyzed in the Lyapunov sense. The validity of the proposed scheme is verified via simulation results.

Line follower mobile robots, prototypes of robots and functional of mobile robots

This study presents the working principle of line follower robots. This study starts from the description of the components used in robots of this type to the explanation of the functions used to program robots in the C ++ programming language and the use of multiple cases and exceptions in the programming of robots of this type, because they can be used in different ways and domains and for these, the multiple working characteristics must be determined from the beginning. The study establishes the way these robots work, for a future project to create a family of disinfection robots with UV-C neons.

Design and Implementation of Line Follower Arduino Mobile Robot Using Matlab Simulink Toolbox

The main problem of line follower robot is how to make the mobile robot follows a desired path (which is a line drawn on the floor) smoothly and accurately in shortest time. In this paper, the design and implementation of a complex line follower mission is presented by using Matlab Simulink toolbox. The motion of mobile robot on the complex path is simulated by using the Robot Simulator which is programed in Matlab to design and test the performance of the proposed line follower algorithm and the designed PID controller. Due to the complexity of selection the parameters of PID controller, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm are used to select and tune the parameters of designed PID controller. Five Infrared Ray (IR) sensors are used to collect the information about the location of mobile robot with respect to the desired path (black line). Depending on the collected information, the steering angle of the mobile robot will be controlled to maintain the robot on the desired path by controlling the speed of actuators (two DC motors). The obtained simulation results show that, the motion of mobile robot is still stable even the complex maneuver is performed. The hardware design of the robot system is perform by using the Arduino Mobile Robot (AMR). The Simulink Support Package for Arduino and control system toolbox are used to program the AMR. The practical results show that the performances of real mobile robot are exactly the same of the performances of simulated mobile robot.

Multi-Robot 2.5D Localization and Mapping Using a Monte Carlo Algorithm on a Multi-Level Surface.

Most indoor environments have wheelchair adaptations or ramps, providing an opportunity for mobile robots to navigate sloped areas avoiding steps. These indoor environments with integrated sloped areas are divided into different levels. The multi-level areas represent a challenge for mobile robot navigation due to the sudden change in reference sensors as visual, inertial, or laser scan instruments. Using multiple cooperative robots is advantageous for mapping and localization since they permit rapid exploration of the environment and provide higher redundancy than using a single robot. This study proposes a multi-robot localization using two robots (leader and follower) to perform a fast and robust environment exploration on multi-level areas. The leader robot is equipped with a 3D LIDAR for 2.5D mapping and a Kinect camera for RGB image acquisition. Using 3D LIDAR, the leader robot obtains information for particle localization, with particles sampled from the walls and obstacle tangents. We employ a convolutional neural network on the RGB images for multi-level area detection. Once the leader robot detects a multi-level area, it generates a path and sends a notification to the follower robot to go into the detected location. The follower robot utilizes a 2D LIDAR to explore the boundaries of the even areas and generate a 2D map using an extension of the iterative closest point. The 2D map is utilized as a re-localization resource in case of failure of the leader robot.

A Workspace Limit Approach for Teleoperation Based on Signed Distance Function

The workspace limit to smoothly map unreachable motions sensed in the leader side$^1$ to the reachable workspace of the follower robot is fundamental for teleoperation systems. Although numerous workspace determination methods have been studied, the workspace limit approach still remains challenging. The main difficulty is that the computation of the mapping from an unreachable point to its corresponding nearest point on the workspace boundary is time-consuming. Here we propose a novel representation method to describe the geometric information of the workspace by using Signed Distance Function (SDF). Compared with existing SDFs, the corresponding nearest points on the boundary for unreachable points are also pre-computed and stored. Based on this representation method, we present a time-saving workspace limit approach. The discontinuity problem inherited from the discretized SDF is addressed by an interpolation method. Since the geometric information of the workspace is represented and pre-computed by the SDF, the time-consuming searching is replaced by a simple and extremely fast lookup from the stored SDF values with time complexity O(1). The proposed approach has been implemented for a Single-Leader/Single-Follower (SLSF) teleoperation system. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed approach.

Optimasi Performansi Pengendalian Robot Swarm menggunakan Logika Fuzzy Tipe 2-Particle Swarm Optimazation

Robot control is currently very helpful for human work to be more effective and efficient both in completion time and in mitigating the risk of work accidents that may occur. This study determines the direction of the robot so that it does not collide with each other and reach the target. Controlling the swarm robot with the leader-follower approach uses Fuzzy Logic Type 2-Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to optimise the performance of the swarm robot. The Fuzzy Logic Method Type 2 measures the direction decisions of the leader robot and follower robot using a rule base of 8 rules; the leader-follower robot is given a target. Achieving targets using PSO, the PSO process looks for potential solutions with quality references to reach the target as the optimal solution. The leader-follower modelling has been modelled using kinematic equations and controlling the movement of the robot's trajectory in the form of a simulation that has been carried out. The measurement results based on robot data in an open environment are 110 data, and a square environment is 1342. The measurement results based on robot time in a four-obstacle environment have the fastest time of 10.83 seconds and the longest time environment in an oval environment of 134.9 seconds. The measurement results are based on resources in a free environment of 10.6 kb and a square environment of 49.1 kb. Fuzzy Logic Type 2-PSO has a higher time indicating a stable speed result and judging from the trajectory in avoiding obstacles, and the leader-follower robot has a faster response.

LINE FOLLOWING ROBOT WITH HIGH RADIATION MATERIAL DETECTION CAPABILITY

Advancement in technology have led to a rapid development in the design and manufacturing of robots, enabling them to provide human capabilities without the inherent shortcoming associated with human capabilities; such as boredom, fear, inefficiency etc. A mobile robot that can sense and observe the line drawn on the floor is the Line Follower Robot. The direction is usually predefined and can be either visible on a white surface with a high contrast colour like a black line or invisible like a magnetic field. Hence, with its Infrared Ray (IR) sensors mounted under the robot, this sort of robot can feel the line. Then, the information is conveyed by specific transition buses to the processor. The processor will determine the right commands and then send them to the driver, and the line follower robot will then follow the direction. Therefore, this paper focuses on the design of a mobile line following robot for detecting the high radiation level of a sample farmland and display on a 7-segment display by the aid of sensors to navigate through grid. The mobile line following robot must move through the squares and detect the high radiation levels and at the end provides us with information on the number of squares and detected high radiation levels. The robot's area of operation is limited to six squares each of dimension 60cm×60 cm. Silver coloured square spots with dimensions of 5 cm by 5 cm made of foil paper are used to indicate a high radiation level