Development of a Collaborative Wheeled Mobile Robot: Design Considerations, Drive Unit Torque Control, and Preliminary Result

Nowadays, wheeled mobile robots constitute a considerable portion of robots in industrial applications. Generally, regardless of their purpose, these systems are not designed to physically interact with humans, other robots, or the environment. In this study, we present a novel safe autonomous mobile - SAM - robot, which is a torque-controlled compliant robot that is conceived for safe human-robot interaction. This work provides an overview of the development philosophy of the system, its mechanical and mechatronics structure along with control and navigation architecture. Preliminary results show the advantages of the proposed mobile robot while interacting with its surroundings. We believe that this study will bring the wheeled mobile robots one step closer to the proactive interaction with their environment and humans surrounding them.