Differential drive kinematics and odometry for a mobile robot using TwinCAT

Miguel Ferreira; Luís Moreira; António Lopes; Miguel Ferreira; Luís Moreira; António Lopes

doi:10.3934/era.2023092

Electronic Research Archive

2023, Volume 31, Issue 4: 1789-1803. doi: 10.3934/era.2023092

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Differential drive kinematics and odometry for a mobile robot using TwinCAT

1.
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, Faculdade de Engenharia (FEUP), Universidade do Porto, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal
2.
Instituto de Ciência e Inovação em Engenharia Mecânica e Engenharia Industrial (INEGI), Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal

Received: 04 November 2022 Revised: 13 January 2023 Accepted: 28 January 2023 Published: 07 February 2023

In this paper, we propose a motion control system for a low-cost differential drive mobile robot. The robotic platform is equipped with two driven wheels powered by Beckhoff motors, instrumented with incremental encoders. The control system is designed and implemented using Beckhoff's TwinCAT 3 automation software, running on an industrial PC. The system is tested and experimentally tuned to achieve optimal performance. The method allows addressing both odometry motion accuracy and motion correction in order to obtain minimum trajectory errors. Test results on linear and angular robot trajectories show errors below 0.02 and 0.03%, respectively, after tuning of the motion parameters. The proposed approach can be expanded, tweaked and applied to other differential drive TwinCAT 3 based robotic solutions. This will contribute to expanding mobile robot applications to a variety of fields, such as industrial automation, logistics, warehouse management, health care, ocean and space exploration and a variety of other industrial and non-industrial activities.
- mobile robotics,
- differential drive,
- kinematics,
- odometry,
- calibration,
- TwinCAT
Citation: Miguel Ferreira, Luís Moreira, António Lopes. Differential drive kinematics and odometry for a mobile robot using TwinCAT[J]. Electronic Research Archive, 2023, 31(4): 1789-1803. doi: 10.3934/era.2023092

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose a motion control system for a low-cost differential drive mobile robot. The robotic platform is equipped with two driven wheels powered by Beckhoff motors, instrumented with incremental encoders. The control system is designed and implemented using Beckhoff's TwinCAT 3 automation software, running on an industrial PC. The system is tested and experimentally tuned to achieve optimal performance. The method allows addressing both odometry motion accuracy and motion correction in order to obtain minimum trajectory errors. Test results on linear and angular robot trajectories show errors below 0.02 and 0.03%, respectively, after tuning of the motion parameters. The proposed approach can be expanded, tweaked and applied to other differential drive TwinCAT 3 based robotic solutions. This will contribute to expanding mobile robot applications to a variety of fields, such as industrial automation, logistics, warehouse management, health care, ocean and space exploration and a variety of other industrial and non-industrial activities.

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