Differential Control of Six-Wheeled Robot Using a Mobile Application

E-ISSN： 1662-9779|2017|260|45-50

ISSN： 1012-0394

Source： Solid State Phenomena, Vol.2017, Iss.260, 2017-08, pp. : 45-50

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Abstract

In recent years, an intense development in the mobile devices such as smartphones, tablets or smartwatches can be noticed. Each of them is equipped with various peripherals [1,2], for example touch screen, GPS, Wi-Fi, accelerometer or Bluetooth module which give a lot of possibilities for engineering use. Control of an intelligent home, positioning clients at the shopping centers through beacons or translation of the speech in real time are just some of the practical uses of mobile technology. On the other hand, a noticeable growth in usage of mobile robots for specific tasks results in an increased demand for a dedicated controller that would enable an intuitive, convenient, and precise control of such devices. The document presents an unconventional way of differential control of the six-wheeled robot through an application on Android device using Bluetooth connectivity. This solution will be presented on an example of a #next Mars rover analogue [fig. 1]. The vehicle was built to participate in University Rover Challenge. This prestigious competition of Mars rovers occurs yearly in the United States on the Utah desert. Measured linear acceleration via the built-in smartphone accelerometer, allows to control the direction and speed of the drive motors and joints of manipulator. The author gives a solution to the most important problems in the presented control method such as correction of accelerometer error or a negative impact of temperature. It also provides solutions to accelerate the establishment of communication such as the inclusion of bluetooth while lunching application or resuming it automatically after incoming call when communication app works in the background. The solution is confronted with currently the most popular ways of mobile robots control.