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Panthera: Design of a Reconfigurable Pavement Sweeping Robot

Conference Paper · May 2019

DOI: 10.1109/ICRA.2019.8794268

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2019 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)
Palais des congres de Montreal, Montreal, Canada, May 20-24, 2019
Panthera: Design of a Reconfigurable Pavement Sweeping Robot
Abdullah A. Hayat, Rizuwana Parween, Mohan R. Elara, K. Parsuraman, and Prathap S. Kandasamy
Abstract— The pavement cleaning is essential to maintain
urban hygiene and keep the long stretch of pavements spick
and span. This paper reports on the development of novel
reconfigurable pavement cleaning robot named Panthera. Re-
configuration in Panthera is gained by the expansion and
contraction of the body frame using a single lead screw shaft
and linkages mechanism. It gives the capability to reshape
itself based on factors like pavement width and pedestrian
density. The independent steering action is derived using two in-
wheels motors for each steering axis. This imparts the flexibility
in motion and make system omnidirectional and allows the
convenient movement of the robot in any direction along the
pavement. It is powered using onboard batteries that generate
lesser noise compared to the existing solution powered with
gasoline. The modeling and steering kinematics is presented
along with experimental results of the path followed and
discussion supporting the robot’s capability.
I. INTRODUCTION
Pavement infrastructure is expected to grow multiple folds
due to the establishment of new communities, and a slew of
sustainable transport initiatives. Cities are expected to have
a pavement which includes cycling path network that will
link intra-town, and inter-town routes, the park connector
networks, and round inland routes. For example, in Singapore
by 2020, the existing sheltered walkway network is set
to increase more than five times from the current stretch.
Regular cleaning of these networked pavements has been a
tedious task for the pavement cleaning manpower. To deal
with this issue, nowadays, sweeping pavement robots are
used to clean sidewalks and pavements. The existing cleaning
robots (some of them listed in Table I have numerous benefits
to replace the manpower doing mundane tasks. However,
these robots suffer from a substantial performance limitation
that hinders from attaining their full capability. One of the
significant factors that contribute to performance degradation
is their fixed morphological design. This constraint them
while navigating through pavements of varying widths, or
when a fixed obstacle is present in the form of the parked
vehicle beside the pavement or dynamic hindrance in the
path due to pedestrian movement (Fig. 1a), etc.
*This work is supported by the National Robotics Research and Devel-
opment Programme Office (NR2PO) Singapore
Abdullah Aamir Hayat (Corresponding Author) is research fellow at
SUTD in ROAR Lab, abdullahaamir@sutd.edu.sg
Rizuwana Parween is research fellow at SUTD in ROAR Lab,
rizuwana parween@sutd.edu.sg
Mohan Rajesh Elara is assistant professor at Engineering Product De-
velopment Pillar, Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD),
rajeshelara@sutd.edu.sg
Karthikeyan Parsuraman is research fellow at SUTD in ROAR Lab,
karthikeyan2@sutd.edu.sg
Prathap Soundar Kandasamy is research assistant in SUTD, Singapore
prathap kandasamy@sutd.edu.sg
978-1-5386-6027-0/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Over the past many decades, a noticeable trend in robotics
is that the research has been much more focused on de-
veloping robotic systems and solving issues in the context
of unstructured environments instead of well-established
environments. With goals of navigating smoothly and ex-
ecuting missions in unstructured environments, developing
fully autonomous and adaptive robots has been a hotspot
in the robotics community. Self-Reconfigurable (SR) robots
are a brand/class of machines that can change their mor-
phologies as per the requirement or adaptable to the en-
vironments. These robots are intelligent machines capable
of autonomously changing their kinematic morphologies to
overcome complexities in the traversing environment or task
being handled. Such robots have tremendous potential in
advancing robotics as a field in general. As summarized
in [1], the need for reconfigurability regarding general re-
configurable systems (not necessarily a robot) is driven by
three main factors, that is, multiability, evolvability, and
survivability. Similarly, we can conclude that the reconfigura-
bility in robotics enables the functionalities of multiability,
evolvability, and survivability of the robot (Fig. 2). Generally,
the shape-changing robots are classified into intra-, inter- and
nested reconfigurability [2]. An intra-reconfigurable robot is
viewed as a collection of components (actuators, mechan-
ical parts, power, sensors, controllers, etc.) working as a
single entity while having the ability to change its internal
morphology without requiring any external assembly or
disassembly. It enhances the manipulation capability as Wu
et al. [3] proposed a metamorphic robotic hand whose intra-
reconfigurable palm is capable of generating the changeable
topology. The inter-reconfigurable robot consists of a con-
gregation of modular robots capable of forming a variety of
morphologies through an ongoing assembly and disassembly
process. There are number of relevant examples such as
CEBOT [4], Millibot [5], Crystalline [6], ATRON [7] etc.
In this paper, we present a novel intra reconfigurable
robot named P anthera for the pavement cleaning. The
Occupants
1.5
3.0m Pavements
a) Line diagram of typical b) Sharp turns and varying cross-
pavement section
Fig. 1: Pavement with varying width and sharp turns
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 TABLE I: Specifications of some pavement cleaning machines Turn Pedestrians

Sideways desirable
GM636 [8] MN [9] CN 101 [10] SS [11] radius

Forward/Backward
Power Source Diesel 48 volt Disel 24 Volt
Sound level 78 dB – 80 dB 80 dB
Omnidirectional No No No No
sweeping speed 8 km/h 7 Km/h 8 km/h 6 km/h
Brush dia. (mm) 750 800 700 700
length (mm) 3580 2150 3792 1750
width (mm) 1140 1900 1050 1310
height (mm) 1980 2400 1950 940
weight capacity 600 kgs 400 kgs 600 kgs 50 Kgs
Wide path Narrow
Wide path with Wide path Narrow
area with with path with
converge/diverge path
design principles based on induction are derived based on pedestrians construction sharp turns
observation, accessibility, activity, and safety. The dimension Fig. 3: Template for pavement construction with cleaning vehicle
of these pavements varies between 0.8 meters to 3 meters
depending upon the pedestrians volume or the constraints
imposed by the construction or plantation present. Figure 1a Fig. 3 for the pavement cleaning that guides in designing
and b represent the geometry of the pavement and its are: a) The width of the pavement construction varies. It can
variation in width along with the sharp turns. Based on this be as wide as 4 meters to as narrow as a meter, and the
we designed the platform to move in the path of varying average width of typical pavements is 1.8 − 2 meters, b)
width. The novel mechanism was designed that is essential Pavements are characterized by the highly dynamic flow of
for the reconfiguration. Also, the detailed kinematic analysis the pedestrians. In order to avoid inconvenience it becomes
was presented. critical to ensure the smooth flow of the people, c) In the
The rest of this paper is organised as follows. Section narrow path the sideways movement of the cleaning platform
II explains on the design requirements, mechanical layout is desirable to cover the pedestrian area without taking the
and the system architecture of the designed robot Panthera full turn, d) Small turning radius will enable the robot to take
in detail. Section III describes the kinematic modeling for sharp turns, e) The noise level should be low while traversing
reconfiguration mechanism and the kinematics of steering since humans share the area. These factors resulted in the
wheels. The initial trajectory performed by the robot is following design features:
tracked using visual markers that show the steering sharp • The platform should have the ability to change its width
turns in Section IV. Finally Section V concludes the paper. of upon sensing the traffic density or as per the width of
II. ROBOT A RCHITECTURE the pavement. The limit on minimum and a maximum
width of the platform in retracted and extended state is
In this section, the necessary design requirements to make 0.7 meters to 2 meters respectively.
the pavement cleaning machine more inclusive to the space • The locomotion of the mobile platform should able to
occupied by human and variation in pavement construction is manoeuvre the sharp angular turns on the flat surface
discussed. The overall mechanical design is also discussed. of narrow (up to a meter) pavements.
A. Design Principles • The payload should be in the range of 150 to 200 kgs.

From the study of existing pavement cleaning vehicles or
robots (some listed in Table I) that are of fixed shapes, we
used the design principles [12], that guides in the realization
of the mobile platform features and design based on the
architectural requirement. The observations concluded from
Reconfigurability
Functionalities
Fig. 4 depicts the proof of concept for the design. The
mechanical layout is discussed next.
B. Mechanical Layout
The Panthera robot is a reconfigurable class of pavement
sweeping robot. It has three major units, i.e., structural,
locomotion, and sweeping units. The structural unit is pri-

Multiability Evolvability Survivability

Objectives

Adaptability Robustness

Extended state Retracted state

Fig. 2: The reconfigurability in robotics enables multiability, evolv-
ability and survivability of the robot which lead to increase of Fig. 4: Proof of concept of the reconfigurable pavement sweeping
adaptability and robustness. robot Panthera

7347
 Central
beam
Side
beams
Guiding
linkages
(a) (b)
Retracted Frame Expanded Frame
Lead Screw
Driving Motor
Universal Joint
(d) (e) (f)
Coupling with lead Flange Bearing Traction Batteries,
screw 24 Volt
Fig. 5: Mechanical layout of Panthera with joints and linkages
marily made of Aluminum, and responsible for supporting
the wheels, driving units, sweeping units, and beams and
linkages to transmit forces for reconfiguration. These are
discussed as follows:
1) Structure and Bellows mechanism: Panthera has the
central beam which is connected to the two movable side
beam with the four guiding linkages, as shown in Fig. 5a
and b. Each guiding link is connected to the central beam
and side beam via hinged connections (Fig. 5c). The double-
sided threaded stud is attached near the ends of central beam
and is the center of the guiding linkages using the ball joints
(Fig. 5d and g). The load of the connecting linkages is
not directly coming on the lead screw through the carriage
block. The purpose of the stud with ball joints connecting
the central beam with guiding linkages is also to bear the
weight of the guiding links. The central beam is a hollow
rectangular cross-section of 8 mm thickness and supports the
lead screw (major diameter = 32 mm, pitch p = 10 mm) with
the half of its length machined as with left-handed thread and
another half with a right-handed screw thread. The one end
of the screw thread is connected to the driving motor via
universal coupling and other end fixed with flange bearing
(Fig. 5e). The lead screw is powered by a driving motor
(DC geared motor 24 Volt, 110 rpm). The linear motion
of the lead screw carriage is transmitted to the side beams
via the hinged guiding links, and as a result, the side frame
leathercloth fabric
Carriage block undergoes contraction and expansion.
Fabric-based bellows are custom built to reshape during
the contraction and expansion of the platform. Artificial
leather with 1.5 mm thickness is reinforced using stainless
steel hollow pipes as shown in 6. These pipes are to be
Lead screw attached to the side frames with an end equalizing frame.
(c)
The dimension of the Panthera in full retracted and extended
Hinged Connection
state are 1.75 × 0.8 × 1.6 meters and 1.75 × 1.7 × 1.6 meters
Ball Joint respectively. The power sources, vacuum units suction drum
will be accommodated on the two side beams as per the
volume available in minimum contracted state is 0.0576 m3 .
The total payload that the system can safely carry is 550 kgs
that also includes the mounted traction batteries (90 kgs on
(g)
each side) as shown in Fig. 5f.
Double sided
threaded stud 2) Lead screw mechanism: The mounting and fixity con-
ditions of the bearings define how the screw is constrained
concerning various degrees of freedom at the ends of the
screw. The lead screw is supported at three points on bear-
ings, i.e., two at the end and one in the middle of the shaft.
The fixity condition affects the performance of the screw,
and hence, the critical speed criteria must be included while
designing a lead screw [13]. The theoretical, critical speed
(N ) in rpm is given by N = (14.03 × 106 × D × C)/L2ls
where, D is the root diameter of the lead screw in inches,
Lls is the length of the screw between the end supports, C
represents the fixity condition. In Panthera, the lead screw
is supported between the motor coupling and the bearing,
which provides a fixed-fixed boundary condition, and hence
C is 2.23. By using the root diameter and the supported
length of the lead screw between the coupling and the
bearing as 59 inches, 0.9 inches, the theoretical, critical speed
is found to be 1320 rpm. This speed is the first natural
frequency of the screw that excites the system at resonance.
Based on this, the maximum operating speed of the screw
can be considered as 1056 rpm, which is 80 percent of the
theoretical, critical speed.
3) Steering unit: The locomotion unit consists of four sets
of differential wheel units connected to the side beams as
shown in Fig. 7. The differential wheel units are made of
two fixed standard wheels, and each wheel hub is connected
Motor
with
Rear Steering Front steering
encoder to
Unit unit
engage/di
sengage
(a)

Steering Encoder Scrubber

axis Side motor
Frame
Pitch
Axis (c)
Roll Axis Suspension near wheels
crown Free
Scrubber
Side frame with end
falling (b) (d)
Reinforcement hollow pipes root
equalizing hollow pipes Steering axis and passive axis for suspension Assembly for engaging
Fig. 6: Body covering using bellows mechanism to adjust width as disengaging of scrubber
per reconfiguration state Fig. 7: Steering unit and scrubbing assemblies

7348
directly to the individual motor. Each fixed wheel is driven III. K INEMATIC M ODEL
by a DC brushed geared motor of 24 Volts and 130 rpm. By The reconfiguration mechanism is a planar kinematic-
driving these wheels in the opposite direction, the differential chain that consist of four loops with similar kinematic pair
unit can steer about the axle. By varying the steering angle of unit as shown in Fig. 9b(ii). The mobility for a planar
each differential wheel unit, the platform can achieve omnidi- mechanism is given by Grubler-Kutzbach’s criteria as:
rectional movement by varying their heading through 360◦
j

but strictly speaking it is not holonomic. The differential
m = 3(n − j − 1) + fi (1)
wheel units are connected with two hinges on top, one is
i=1
mainly to distribute the load evenly to individual wheels, and
another hinge is for suspension as shown Fig. 7b. The axle is where n is the number of links including the fixed link, j
supported by the thrust bearing to sustain the axial load. The is the number of joints, and fi is the degrees of freedom
axle bush is assembled with bush bearing and fastened with (DOF) of the ith joint. Taking one close loop of one side as
the welded flange on the supporting beam. On the top of the shown in Fig. 9b(i), the number of links n = 6, the number
axle, an encoder is assembled to control the steering angle of joints j = 6, and each joint has one DOF which results in
of the differential wheels. The central beam is mounted on f = 6. Upon substituting these values in Eq. 1, the mobility
the three pairs of castor wheels (Fig. 7e) to provide stability is 3. Here, the system has two constraints: i) with the side
to the main beam and smooth locomotion for the sideways linkages constrained to move in a straight line using the link
movement of the frame. OP and, ii) the central shaft has left handed and right handed
lead screw which constraints the movement of the carriage.
As a result, the net mobility of the system was obtained by
C. System architecture
subtracting the number of constraint from the mobility as
The system architecture of Panthera is shown in Fig. 8. (3 − 2) = 1. The carriage moves due to the rotation of the
The traction batteries are used to power the eight wheel lead screw motion with (ωL × p)/(2π × 60) = vcarriage .
motors, four motors to rotate the scrubbing wheels, another where, ωL is the angular velocity in rotation per minutes
four to engage and disengage the scrubber from the ground (rpm) with which the lead screw is driven using the motor,
and the controller. The proximity and auxiliary sensors are vcarriage is the velocity of the carriage.
attached to the body, and the feedbacks are taken in the
A. Reconfiguration kinematics
robotic operating system (ROS) based server-client package.
The LIDAR sensors are mounted on the platform to map The forward kinematic of the robot is modeled using the
the environment and also to measure the distance between DH convention as used in [14]. The Denavit and Hartenberg
the platform and the pavement. Once the robot navigation (DH) parameters uses four independent parameters, namely
begins, the system calculates the distances between sensors
and pavement and streams the data to the controller in real Revolute joint Rear side Front side
time. The controller is in charge of several crucial tasks
for the overall system to operate. Once the distance data
from the navigation system is received, the robot localization 600
Stud
Driving motor 800
algorithm will calculate the robot position, i.e., the absolute L z zr1 zf1
Ball joints

position of the platform based on distance measurements. a2 zr 2 zf 2

{0} xf1
fl ,2
br1
r 2 bf 1

zr 3 a3 xr 2
f ,3x f 2 zf 3
Auxiliary Traction batteries (24 Volt)
GUI: smart

Sensors B
phone

Proximity sensors array

xr 3
xf 4
xf 3
r3 x l ,3
Bluetooth r4
stroke
LM1

LM2

module SM1 SM2 a) Frame assigned for the DH parameterization

microcontroller ED1 j : Joint
# : Link Revolute joint
WM1 WM8
stroke
j5 P j6
Industrial WM2 WM7 P
PC (ROS) #5 O A
Lead screw Motor #6 j1 # 4 j4 j4 Ellipse x

WM6
#1 A D
microcontroller
WM3
WM5 B
#3
C
z P'
Visual feedback

WM4
j2 #2 j3 P
LM3

Circle
monitor

SM3
LM4

SM4 (i)

O B Double sided
Proximity sensors array A threaded stud
wx Ball joint
Traction batteries P Constrained to move
WM(1-8): Wheel motors Motor drivers along this direction only
(ii) B
SM(1-4): Scrubber motors
b) Kinematic pairs of sections c) Equivalent elliptical trammel: with center point of
LM(1-4): Motors for engaging disengaging the scrubbers from the ground
the guiding link traces circle
Fig. 8: System architecture of the developed robot Fig. 9: Reconfiguration kinematics and the rate of change of shape

7349
TABLE II: DH parameters of one side moving beam mechanism
B. Wheel steering kinematics
b θ a α Remarks
1 b∗r1 0 0 0 Carriage block-1 slide The kinematics of the platform depends upon the arrange-
∗
θr2 a2
LL
2 0 90 Constraint movement ment of the wheels and its type selected. They are discussed
3 0 ∗
θr3 a3 0 Constraint movement in details in [15]. Among the various architecture of mobile
1 800 + b∗f 1 0 0 0 Carriage block-2 slide
robot that depends on the choice of wheels arrangement like,
RL 2 0 θf∗2 a2 90 Constraint movement
3 0 θf∗3 a3 0 Constraint movement
differential drive robots, omnidirectional wheels, traction
LL: Left hand lead screw, RL: Right hand lead screw, ∗ : Joint variables wheels, etc. To gain the four-wheel independent drive and
Also, change in b∗r1 = (Negative) change in b∗f 1 steering the four motorized and steered standard wheels were
Subscript r :rear and f : front, b and a in mm, θ and α in degrees selected.
For kinematics analysis of the platform, a platform refer-
ence frame XP YP ZP , is attached at the mid of the central
joint offset bi , joint angle θi , link length ai , and twist angle beam at OP , with ZP Yp spans the plane parallel to the
αi for the ith link to represent the transformation between inertial plane spanned by the vector XI YI as shown in
two consecutive frames say i and (i+1) in a kinematic chain. Fig. 10 parallel to plane of motion. During locomotion,
Fig. 9 shows the kinematic diagram of the robot platform and the robot has three degrees of freedom, namely, sideways
the legs. The DH parameters of a single leg for the Panthera motion along XP and forward/backward motion along ZP
robot are listed in Table II. Forward kinematic analysis, three and the rotation about the XP as ωP . Four steering units SUi
frames F1 , F1 , and F3 , are attached at the origin of these (i = 1, 2, · · · , 4) were attached with the two side beams as
joints, shown in Fig 9a. Zr,1 is the rear axis aligned along the shown in Fig. 10b. The steering angle is denoted with ψi ,
axis of the lead screw, Zr,2 and Z3 axes are perpendicular and the joining vector from the centre to the origin of the
to the plane of motion. Similarly, it was shown for the front steering unit subtends an angle γi . The tangential velocity
part. The position of the linkages was found by multiplying of each wheel is represented by vk , where k = 1, 2, · · · , 8,
the homogeneous transformation matrix. Mainly the position i.e., the total number of wheels attached to the platform. The
of the side beam, i.e., say point B (Fig. 9) w.r.t, the frame{0} steering angles are related with the rolling velocities of the
is given as: wheels as:
⎡ ⎤ ⎡ v1 −v2 ⎤ ⎡ ⎤
xB = a2 + a3 cosθr2 ≡ wx (2) ψ̇1 a ω1 − ω 2
⎢ ψ̇2 ⎥ ⎢ v3 −v4 ⎥ rw ⎢ ω3 − ω4 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎣ ψ̇3 ⎦ = ⎣ v5 −v6 ⎦ = a ⎣ ω5 − ω6 ⎦
a (6)
Fig. 9b shows the double sided threaded stud with the
ball joints placed at its two end. The thread placed at the end a
v7 −v8
ψ̇4 a
ω7 − ω8
helped in adjusting the effective length and the spherical joint
takes care of the misalignments in assembling. The purpose The position vector of the wheels in the frame attached
of this stud is to support and carry the weight of the guiding with the platform (XP YP ZP ) is denoted by lw,k . The
link. The length of the stud AB as shown in the Fig. 9b can magnitude and the angle subtended by the position vector
be calculated using following equations: is given by:

z = BP cos θ and x = P A sin θ (3) lk = d2k + wx2 and γk = tanh−1 (dk , wx ) (7)
Upon squaring and adding the above two equations we get: where tanh−1 is the inverse hyperbolic tangent function. The
2 2 values of wx at a given configuration of the platform was
z x
+ =1 (4)
BP 2 P A2
where, z is the distance of the point P from the inter- (Forward) (Steering
Steering unit SU 2 Caster wheels  k angle)
section of the lead screw axis and the side ways extension a ZP
of the guiding link, i.e., point O as shown in Fig. 9c. In 3  rw
w1
SU1
w3 SU2
order to place the stud of constant length to support the w2
lk w4
weight of guiding link, the lengths AP = P B (Fig. 9b.), d
4 lk
k
such that the point P traces the circle. Hence the length of
Left-frame

stud OP = AP = P B. All other points on AB will trace OP XP

an ellipse as evident from the Eq. 4. Hence the spherical
Right-frame

d
joint was approximately placed at the mid of the guiding
w6
link and the other end of this strut with the ball joint is SU3 w7
w8
fixed with the central frame as shown in Fig. 9b. For the w5
YI SU3
extension/retraction of the side frame, the velocity of the wx wx
points along the guiding link can be calculated by taking the XI
(Sidewise)

derivative of Eq. 4 as: a) Wheels and steering axis b) Steering units and eight active
wheels attached to frame
z
2z ż + 2xẋ = 0, ẋ = − ż (5) Fig. 10: Steering kinematics
x

7350
 Left-frame Right-frame Left-frame Right-frame Left-frame
Case-I: Left wheels Case-II: Right wheels
Case-III: Central frame
stationary stationary stationary
Fig. 11: Three possible gaits while reconfiguring the width
found from Eq. 2 and d is of constant length. The platform
is symmetric and as a result the left frame is the reflection
of the right beam about the central beam axis.
Based on the above formulation which gave the angle sub-
tended γk is useful to calculate steering angle for a particular
configuration. The gaits for the reconfiguration of the frame
are shown in Fig. 11. The analysis done in this section is
helpful in calculating the configuration of the platform and
the steering angle required to generate a particular gait. Note
that the two in-wheels motors will provide faster locomotion
but at the same time the synchronization of the four steering
angular positions to achieve a particular gait will pose a
control challenge. The experiments will be done carried out
in future to demonstrate the same.
IV. T RACKING AND L OCOMOTION EXPERIMENT
To test the linkages movement while reconfiguration, ex-
periments were conducted capturing the expansion and con-
traction of the linkage mechanism. The steps for acquiring
the pose data using a monocular camera were adapted from
[16]. A stationary camera with resolution 1280 × 720 pixels
was used to capture the locomotion. During locomotion, the
positions of the point A on the side beam, point B on the
guiding link, point C at the center of the connecting link
were tracked by using tracker software. The screen-shots of
the locomotion of these points are shown in Fig. 12a.
For the locomotion tracking test, we have placed the
camera on the robot’s frame. Chameleon3 camera from
Ptgrey with the 10 mm fixed focal length lens attached to
it were used to capture the frames. The processing details
of the marker-based approach are presented in [17]. These
multiple markers are distinct, and each is having a dimension
of 10 × 10 cms were glued on the flat board. These markers
were glued without any waviness on the board, that can
cause the error in pose reading. The markers arrangement
used during the experiment ensured that they are visible
during the moving of the platform. The position of the
markers must not be changed once they are fixed for a
specific set of readings. By placing the markers over a larger
area, it was possible to capture the images of markers while
moving the platform up to 10 meters. Fig. 12 shows the
tracking of the position of the vehicle done using these
markers. The sharp turn was obtained by steering the wheels
by 90 degrees and the robot was made to move sideways.
The intersection of the trajectory with the processed camera
pose shows that the turn was made by 88.72 degrees. This
variation is mainly due to the fact that no feedback control
Right-frame
camera
a) Tracking for the linkages movement b) Camera placed on the side frame
88.72
c) Processed pose of the camera d) Trajectory and angle of turn
Fig. 12: Tracking of linkages during reconfiguration and trace of
path while locomotion of the Panthera
for positioning was implemented at present. We just finished
with the assembly of the platform and carried out a very
basic tracking experiments showing the system capabilities.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we presented a novel reconfigurable pave-
ment cleaning robot. The ability of the platform to recon-
figure enhance its performance under the different pavement
width conditions, and with the increase in pedestrian den-
sity, it can also reduce its width while in operation. The
system architecture and the design features are discussed.
The kinematic modeling done resulted in establishing the
relationship between the carriage and sideways movement of
the beam. The steering angle relation with the configuration
of the platform, i.e., width at a given instant was presented.
The gaits for reconfiguration about the left, right and central
beam are discussed. The analysis is particularly helpful in
the scenario where the robot needs to fix its one frame
(say along the side walls) and then change its width. The
initial experiments using tracking in video and using marker
maps were presented to show the mechanism and motion
capability. The future work will consist of tuning of gaits,
control models suited for reconfiguration, path planning
algorithms for area coverage during the pavement cleaning
and experiments for the autonomous navigation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is financially supported by the National
Robotics R&D Program Office, Singapore, under the Grant
No. RGAST1702 to Singapore University of Technology and
Design (SUTD) which are greatly acknowledged to conduct
this research. We acknowledge Mr. Manojkumar Devarasu
for making the animation. We are thankful to Dr. Karthikeyan
Elangovan for the discussion and providing the insight into
the design and Mr. Krishnamurthy in the Brightsun Marine
Pte. Ltd., Singapore.
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