Navigation in indoor environment by an autonomous unicycle robot with wide-type wheel

The objective of this research is to perform a long distance navigation in indoor environment, with a unicycle robot that has a wide-type wheel, and has a laser range finder installed on top of the robot. At present, there is no report for long distance navigation by unicycle robot in real indoor environment. We have developed a system that consists of two subsystems; “Balancing and Maneuvering System” for moving robot to desired direction while the posture of the robot is stabilized, and “Navigation System” for calculation of desired direction and recognition of intersections, using external sensor whose scan plain changes when robot steers. We have implemented the system to a single SH-4 CPU microcomputer, and performed a long distance navigation in actual indoor environment. The paper reports the unicycle robot and the system we have developed, and the experiment result of long distance navigation in indoor environment.