Design and Implementation of a Multi-sensor Mobile Platform

In the last several years, mobile manipulators have been increasingly utilized and developed from a theoretical viewpoint as well as for practical applications in space, underwater, construction, and service environments. Our mobile manipulator RISCbot, is comprised of a manipulator arm mounted on a motorized mobile base wheelchair. The work presented in this chapter explores the use of multi-sensor for combining measurements from ultrasonic and infrared sensors for mobile manipulator navigation and obstacle avoidance. Furthermore, we deal with the problem of controlling of a mobile manipulator via sensor fusion in order to reduce the uncertainty in localization and obstacle avoidance. Sensor fusion is used by combining and integrating data gathered from sensory information provided by ultrasonic and infrared sensors to enhance the quality of information provided to RISCbot.

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