Design and construction of a low cost wheeled mobile robot for implementation of path planning algorithms

This paper describes in general terms the design considerations and construction of a wheeled mobile robot (WMR) developed in the research group GIRA of the Universidad Tecnologica de Pereira. The main objective of this work is to develop a robot with the adequate and necessary systems for the navigation, auto-location, path following, and other similar applications of mobile robotics. One of the main problems of mobile robotics is the implementation of theoretical developments in real robots, therefore this project presents an agile and low-cost solution for researchers to perform several control and automation tests. The built prototype is subjected to some validation tests, to evaluate the performance of the mechanical system, the electronic system and the control implemented to path following. A position error of 0.015 m was obtained in a 3.6 m path for a closed trajectory.