Path Tracking Method for Traveling-Wave-Type Omnidirectional Mobile Robot (TORoIII)

An omnidirectional movement mechanism is needed that can move a robot in a narrow complicated passage. However, existing mechanisms cannot achieve stable operations. We noted that a snail uses traveling waves and can achieve a stable operation because of a large landing area. We therefore developed a traveling-wave-type mobile robot (TORoIII) using a snail’s locomotive mechanism. However, the directions of the robot were restricted by the number of units, i.e., the directions corresponded to the number of units. In addition, to use this robot as an autonomous robot, self-localization method and path planning method are required. At present, these methods for this robot have not been proposed. In this study, we propose a new perfectly omnidirectional locomotion strategy for TORoIII. In addition, we propose odometry based on kinematics and path planning method based on potential method. Furthermore, we propose online path tracking method using the odometry. We experimentally confirmed the utility of these proposed methods.