Mobile Robots

Air Based and Water Based Mobile Robots

Mobile Robots
General Definition
Amobile
robotis
anautomatic machinethat
is capable oflocomotion.
Mobile robots have the
capability to move around
in their environment and
are not fixed to one
physical location.

Types of Mobile Robots

Land Based Robots
Miscellaneous andcombination robot
Stationary Robots
Air Based Robots
Water Based Robots
Hybrid Robots

Land Based Robots

Tracked Robot

Wheeled Robot

Legged Robot

Misc. andcombination robot

Miscellaneous designs can include hovercraft, snake-like
designs, turrets and more.

Advantages
Designed and built to meet specific needs
Multi-tasking and can be comprised of modules
Can lead to increased functionality and versatility

Disadvantages
Increased complexity and cost
Often times parts must be custom designed and built

Stationary Robots
Robot arm is usually a programmable arm, similar to
human arm.
Although these do not fall under mobile robotics they
can be implemented on a mobile robot so that it can
explore its environment.
Robot arms can either be autonomous or remote
controlled (which are the most common ones,
manufactured and used across industries).
A typical robot arm has six degrees of freedom.

Arms and Grippers

Water-Based Robots
Although there is an increasinginterest in the study of
aquatic robots, there are only a few successfully built
aquatic robots.
This is because of the challenging environment they
work and also because electricity and electronics
essentially do not like water.
Making a robot to work in water generally ends up in
undesirable failures.
There are a few challenges you need to overcome
before designing an aquatic robot.

Challenges in water based robots

The first challenge in creating an aquatic robot is to make
all the electronics waterproof. There are many ways by
which electronics can be made waterproof. Some of the
basic ideas are
Enclosing all the circuits and electronics in an air-tight
container
Enclosing the circuits in oil filled containers which
resists water inflow
Using hot-glue all over the circuits and then submerging
them

Robot boat
Robot boats float over water and are not designed to
submerge in water.
They can be either autonomous or remotely controlled.
This is the easiest form of aquatic robot as it does not
involve complex waterproofing of electronics as most of
electronics can still stay away from water.

Robot Boat

Swimming robots / Submarines

Swimming robots are fin driven although there are
submarine versions which dive deep into water and
propel themselves from one place to another using
wings, propellers, etc.
These underwater robots are generally controlled with
little or no intelligence built inside them.

Aquatic Robot

Advantages and Disadvantages of Water-Based

Robots
Vast unexplored field of robotics
Each design is assured to be unique
Wide area of opportunities as most part of our world is water
Too many opportunities in commercial applications
Water proofing: Electronics hate water and not water proofing the circuitry
resulting in shorting your entire circuit
Deeper depths require more sophisticated designs and considerable research
Very less number of aquatic robots would mean less support and minimal
available resources
Not all land based sensors work in the same way in water
Density and weight of robot significantly affects the working of marine based
robots, which can be easily ignored in land based robots

Air-Based Robots
Wright brothers invented the first machine which carried
a man, flew like a bird and descended successfully.
In the robotic world, similar experiments are made to
mimic those flying machines to create UAVs
(Unmanned Ariel Vehicles). Flying robots provides
access to 3 dimensional spaces that no other
environment can offer.

There are different flying robots that you can be built;

Helicopters, Airplanes, Robots with wings (biologically
inspired), balloons and many more.

Some of the major aspects you need to consider before

building a flying Robots
It takes tremendous amount of energy to lift a robot off ground. Hence,
carry out an extensive research on battery to be used, battery weight,
battery life etc., Similar research is required if you are using other forms
of energy sources (like a fuel powered propeller)
Weight of the robot is a major setback. Design your robot in such a way
that the thrust generated is greater than the gravitational pull generated
because of your robots weight
Three dimensional controls are fun to watch, but designing control
mechanisms for all those three dimensions (x-axis, y-axis and z-axis) are
tedious. Sensors like accelerometer and gyro might come to the rescue
Most UAVs are remote controlled which uses a specific frequency to
control them. Make sure you dont crash another airplane

Air-Based Robots

Advantages
First and foremost, flying robots are fun to build and fly
Experiments on Remote controlled robots are going on for years. This means
there is a huge community which can help you if you like to build one.
These robots are extremely useful as surveillance robots

Disadvantages
Building a flying robot is expensive when compared to purchasing one
Requires extensive research before designing and building one (and even then it
might fail)
A minor crash can break parts and make your robot irreparable. The parts
required to build these flying robots are very expensive making a crash even
worst.

Hybrid robots

Hybrid Robots

are those which are designed by combining

the qualities of two or more robots. For
example a hovercraft robot can be designed
to traverse either on land or in water. Another
robot might be able to walk under water and
also swim. A third one might fly and crawl.
The combinations are enormous and it is left
to you to combine and create wonders.

Thank you