Development and Control of a High Maneuverability Wheeled Robot with Variable-Structure Functionality

Common wheeled robots face many difficulties when traveling in complex environments, especially its incapability to climb over obstacles higher than its wheel radius. Many alterations were made to these robots to allow them to travel in rough terrains or conquer high obstacles, nevertheless, most designs are complex in nature and lost several original wheeled robot advantages by gaining others. In this paper, we propose a novel wheeled type robot with variable structure functionality. It is designed with simple structure consisting of three main robot parts, the main body, the left and right wheel-arm units. The robot could achieve five locomotion modes that allows the robot to travel in various environments and climb over high obstacles. Moreover, the fast-speed advantage in flat floor condition that common wheeled robot originally hold is still remained. The confirmation of the effectiveness of the robot´s maneuverability is shown by several experimental results