Description

Introduction The Robot of tomorrow will be the effective result of the research work of today. Robotics advancement is going on in almost all technological areas. Especially for mobile robots, a similar trend is happening for computer systems, the transition from mainframe computing via workstations to PCs, which will probably continue with handheld devices for many applications. In the past, mobile robots were controlled by heavy, large, and expensive computer systems that could not be carried and had to be linked via cable or wireless devices. Today, however, we can build small mobile robots with numerous actuators and sensors that are controlled by inexpensive, small, and light embedded computer systems that are carried on-board the robot. There has been a tremendous increase of interest in mobile robots. Not just as interesting toys or inspired by science fiction stories or movies, but as a perfect tool for engineering education, mobile robots are used today at almost all universities in undergraduate and graduate courses in Computer Science/Computer Engineering, Information Technology, Cybernetics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics Science and Mechatronics. A robot is a tangible, self-contained piece of real-world hardware. Tasks to be solved involving a robot are of a practical nature and directly make sense to the user. All problems involving real-world hardware such as a robot are in many ways harder than solving a theoretical problem. The perfect world which often is the realm of pure software systems does not exist here. Any actuator can only be positioned to a certain degree of accuracy, and all sensors have intrinsic reading errors and certain limitations. Therefore, a working robot program will be much more than just a logic solution coded in software. It will be a robust system that takes into account and overcomes inaccuracies and imperfections. Mobile robot programming is enjoyable and an inspiration. The fact that there is a moving system whose behavior can be specified by a piece of software is a challenge,