Obstacle Avoidance and Feature Point Navigation for an Office Delivery Robot

This thesis presents an implementation of an office delivery robot. First, it provides motivation for this type of project and discusses the abilities a successful delivery robot must possess. Next, the robot used for this project is presented, and its relevant hardware is broken down and explained. Special emphasis is placed on the sensing system, which consists of infrared proximity sensors and incremental optical encoders. The investigation of the hardware is followed by a look into the software side of a delivery robot. This includes the user interface, wireless communication scheme, robot controller, and movement methodology. The core of the thesis follows with a discussion of feature point representation, path planning, and obstacle avoidance. Finally, experimental results are provided, and potential areas for future work are proposed