Development of a mobile robot: control and navigation for outdoor environments

For mobile robots to be able to work safely among humans, they have to be accurate in their motion acquiring knowledge via sensors. Nowadays mobile robots are being used more and more in outdoor environment for many purposes. This thesis covers the essential aspects of a mobile robot combining perception, state estimation and control for outdoor navigation. The first part involves an overview of the concepts related to kinematics, optimization and real time systems. Those topics give the basis to understand the following chapters in which more advanced topics are covered. The second part covers the state of the art review of the algorithms used in localization and navigation. The last part is dedicated to the decisions related to the implementation for the specific case study. It is described how GPS, IMU and wheel odometry have been fused via EKF to get an estimate of the robot pose. Moreover, the developed control law is described in details with relative performances. The last chapter covers the simulation phase in which results are shown with possible enhancements.