Wheeled mobile robot modeling aspects

A young designer of the wheeled mobile robot has to answer a wide range of questions before making a final decision to build a prototype. The basic problem is to define an appropriate drive and type of construction. At this stage, the young designers usually duplicate ready-made solutions, however, in general uses an inappropriate drive. The robot behaves correctly only after several failed designs. Unfortunately, the construction of several versions of the robot takes a long time and involves significant costs. The authors suggest how to help and accelerate the robot design process. Following these suggestions the young designer can develop his knowledge how to model and simulate in the MATLAB/Simulink environment. The first part of the article contains a basis for mathematical modeling of the wheeled mobile robots. As an example, a complete mathematical model of the selected robot type is developed. The second part presents methods of verification and validation the prepared model. After selecting the appropriate drive parameters (e.g. maximum torque, maximum speed, etc.) user is able to perform a simulation of the designed robot. In addition, the effects of simulation can be seen in the visualization and a designer is able to assess if the design of robot meets the established requirements. Keywords-mobile robot, mathematical modeling, simulation