Kinematics Analysis of SpaceBot Rover's Motion Model

Robots are found everywhere, Homes, Industries, Hospitals and last but not the least in Space. With the dawn of new Millennium, Robots are transforming from industrial scope to more for unstructured Environments working alone and together with humans. Use of Mobile Robots is proposed in such unstructured environments.  Mobile robots development has several problems and challenges: requires a robot to travel over rugged terrain without entrapped or tipping over; Mobility Dependant on terrain geometry and physical properties (Robot traversing loose and sloped sand might experience wheel slippage and poor mobility as compared to robot traversing on flat terrain). Requires a robot to accurately assess its mobility characteristics over various terrain types. Requires a robot to possess some degree of autonomy to operate efficiently, Robot must be able to do locomotion without and human supervision in difficult or surprised terrains High degree of autonomy means high efficient kinematics model and control strategies, more sensors are required.  Modeling and development for such a robot to travel on unstructured environment effectively is a challenging task.  Full 6-DOF Kinematics modeling of SpaceBot rover with three type of Kinematics identification (Navigation, Slip and Actuation) is proposed in this thesis and to compare the results with 3-DOF kinematics.