Omni-directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several application areas. However, the kinematics for these systems have not been clearly identified, specially for redundantly actuated case which is common in omni-directional mobile robot such as Nomadic model. For such mobile robot systems, exploitation of redundant actuation as well as singularity analysis has not been extensi...

Due to their advantages, omni-directional mobile robots have found many applications especially in robotic soccer competitions. However, omni directional navigation system, omni-vision system and kicking mechanism in such mobile robots have not ever been combined. This situation brings the idea of a robot with no head direction into existence, a comprehensive omni directional mobile robot. Such...

In this paper, we propose SURF feature based approach for mobile robot navigation. In this approach, we capture environmental images by using omni-directional camera and extract features of these images by using SURF. We treat these features as landmarks and estimate robot self-location and direction of motion. SURF features are invariant under scale change and rotation and robust under image n...

Omni directional mobile robots have been popularly employed in several applications especially in soccer player robots considered in Robocup competitions. However, omni directional navigation system, omni-vision system and omni-kick mechanism in such soccer player robots have not ever been combined. This situation brings the idea of a robot with no head direction into existence, i.e. a comprehe...

We refer to human-robot relationships as Lovotics. In this paper a design process for Lovotics is presented. In order to invoke these relationships, technological solutions can only take us so far. Design played an important role in order to engage users to explore the possibilities of bi-directional, human-robot love. We conducted a user-centric study in order to understand these factors and i...

This paper describes a low computational direct approach for optimal motion planning and obstacle avoidance of Omni-directional mobile robots within velocity and acceleration constraints on the robot motion. The main purpose of this problem is the minimization of a quadratic cost function while limitation on velocity and acceleration of robot is considered and collision with any obstacle in the...

Structure From Motion Using Omni-directional Vision and Certainty Grids. (August 2004) Steven Rey Ortiz, B.S., Texas A&M University Chair of Advisory Committee: Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna This thesis describes a method to create local maps from an omni-directional vision system (ODVS) mounted on a mobile robot. Range finding is performed by a structure-from-motion method, which recovers the th...

Due to their advantages, omni-directional mobile robots have found many applications especially in robotic soccer competitions. Despite recent advances, effective control and self-localization of omni-directional mobile robots remain as important and challenging issues. In this work, a practical approach for control and self-localization of an omni-directional robot is proposed. For this purpos...

This paper addresses trajectory tracking of an omni-directional mobile robot (OMR) with three mecanum wheels and a fully symmetrical configuration. The omni-directional wheeled robot outperforms the non-holonomic wheeled robot due to its ability to rotate and translate independently and simultaneously. A kinematics model of the OMR is established and a model predictive control (MPC) algorithm w...

The structure of OmniKity-I (OK-I), the miniature omni-directional mobile robot, and its kinematics and dynamics models are presented. OK-I has three DOFs in the plane. A conventional two wheeled mobile robot (2-WMR) serves as the base of OK-I for translational motion. The robot body is on top of the base. The third motor controls angular motion of the body as the base turns according to the tr...