Intelligent mobile robots

For the purpose of the application to remote working apparatuses in nuclear power plants and others, the software and moving mechanism of mobile robots that automatically accomplish the movement by only specifying the destination were manufactured for trial. The software has the function of searching a path to determine the quasi-shortest path and the function of controlling execution to control the action of the robots and guide to the destination. By taking heuristics into the method of searching a path and utilizing ultrasonic waves for the function of sight as they can easily detect distance though the information quantity is small, the execution was accelerated. By the simulation examination and the experiment using a mobile apparatus made for trial, it was confirmed that the route plan was able to be made almost in real time, and the appearance of an unknown obstacle was detected before collision and able to be reasonably avoided by the revision of the plan. An environment model, a route planner, the program for controlling execution, the makeup and control of moving function and the experiment on the movement are reported. The shortening of the processing time by dealing with unconfirmed echo and simplifying the writing in a map is a future problem. (Kako, I.)