Mechatronic design and development of an autonomous mobile robotics system for road marks painting

Abstract

This paper presents a mechatronic design and development of a new Wheeled Mobile Robot prototype for autonomous road marks painting. The platform comprises four main units, namely, the differential drive, the measurement and vision, the processing and the painting units. The mechanical design of the platform is derived from the equilibrium of active/reactive forces theorem and the electrical motors are chosen based on the required driving torque. The electronics items such as sensors, actuators and the interface free controller cards are connected together in such a way that ensures high performance for exchanging the data between the on-board computer and other electronic parts. The embedded controller of the proposed platform has been developed to integrate the mechanical components with electronics system and software algorithms to enable the robot for navigating autonomously on the road. The painting system is attached with WMR platform to control automatically the flow of the paint during road marks painting. The platform design, components, control of the paint and the connection to the main WMR controller are fully presented. The results of the robotics road marks painting system shows the capability of the platform to apply the road marks painting while it is navigating autonomously on the road.