Simulation of Virtual Environment for Scout Mobile Robot

ABSTRACT: This study has been set out to fill the perceived gaps within the context of mobile robots literature. For this purpose, a real-life robot which is known as Scout – and one set of which has hitherto been purchased by Iran University of Science and Technology – has been adopted to carry out investigations on the motion-planning problem. The optimal path for the base of the manipulator robot was designed and developed benefitting from the Kinematic and Dynamic functions along with the Path profile; withal, Optimal Control was also utilized before applying Pontryaginʹs minimum principle. Moreover, in contemplation of devising autonomous obstacle avoidance alongside diminishing the risk of being lost or deviated from a target point, over the course of the next stage, so-called Artificial Intelligence has been implemented in the noted robot by means of the Artificial Neural Networks. Thereafter, Scout has been simulated in a three-dimensional environment, whereby a comparison is taken place to contrast the differences resulted from the 2D simulation. This comparison not only verifies the exact compliance of the results of both the 2D and 3D simulations, but also proves the benefits of the 3D simulation, which provides a more realistic analysis of robot’s motion-planning. At length, the findings of this research affirm that enhancing robot with the Kinematic and Dynamic functions, Path profile, Optimal Control and Artificial Neural Network promotes autonomous traits of the robot that facilitates collision-free movements. Furthermore, this study might serve as a test-bed for conducting investigations on the routing of the Scout robot prior to any real-time implementations.