Analysis And Design Of A Two-wheeled Robot With Multiple User Interface Inputs And Vision Feedback Control

This thesis describes the development of a small, inexpensive, controllable mobile two-wheeled robot. It also describes the development of a software interface which allows several open- and closed-loop control methods to be easily implemented. The developed hardware and software modules provide for an open and modular system for research purposes. This is demonstrated through the Bluetooth wireless control of the robot using LabVIEW based software modules. The open-loop control inputs implemented are sliders in a LabVIEW GUI, joystick, and voice commands. The closed-loop control methods included a PD control algorithm that guides the robot to go directly to a user defined point, and a path planning control algorithm that guides the robot to follow a path and reach the user defined goal in the correct orientation. The closed-loop control methods use an external camera for vision based position feedback. All the control methods introduced were successfully tested experimentally.