Design of Quad-Wheeled Robot for Multi-Terrain Navigation

Wheeled robots are often utilized for various remote sensing and telerobotic applications because of their ability to navigate through dynamic environments, mostly under the partial control of a human operator. To make these robots capable to traverse through terrains of rough and uneven topography, their driving mechanisms and controllers must be very efficient at producing and controlling large mechanical power with great precision in real-time, however small the robot may be. This paper discusses an approach for designing a quad-wheeled robot, which is wirelessly controlled with a personal computer (PC) by medium-range radio frequency (RF) transceiver, to navigate through unpaved paths with little or no difficulty. An efficient servo-controlled Ackerman steering mechanism and a high-torque driving power-train were developed. The robot's controller is programmed to receive and respond to RF control signals from the PC to perform the desired motions. The dynamics of the robot's drivetrain is modeled and analyzed on MATLAB to predict its performances. The robot was tested on various topographies to determine its physical capabilities. Results show that the robot is capable of non-holonomically constrained motions on rough and uneven terrains.