ABSTRACT:
The design, modeling and implementation of a novel spherical mobile robot is presented. The robot composes of a spherical outer shell made of a transparent thermoplastic material, two pendulums, two DC motors with gearboxes, two equipments for linear motion and two control units. It possesses four distinct motional modes including: driving, steering, jumping and zero- radius turning. In driving and steering modes, the robot moves along straight and circular trajectories, respectively. The robot performs these motional modes using movable internal masses. In the jumping mode, it can jump over obstacles and in the zero-radius turning mode, the robot can turn with zero-radius to improve the motion flexibility. Furthermore, the attempts to establish the dynamic models of some motional modes are made and finally, the accuracy of the obtained dynamic models is verified.