Design of Multilayered Suspension Mechanism for Differential Type Mobile Robot

This paper presents a design for the novel suspension mechanism of a two-wheeled mobile robot having two casters which is used for indoor environment. Although the indoor environment is less rough than the outdoor one, the fixed caster mechanism has some problems such as causing the robot to be immovable because robot's driving wheels do not have contact with the ground. Therefore, we tried installing a spring-damper suspension mechanism to keep driving capability and to remove pitching phenomenon. However, this suspension mechanism also has the problem, which the robot body inclined by disturbances does not return to the initial position. To deal with above problems and to accomplish desired performances, we designed the Multilayered Suspension Mechanism, which has springs and dampers working partially according to the inclined angle and angular velocity of robot body concerned with pitching. To analyze design, the equations of motion describing their dynamics were developed. Using the equations, simulation results show the improved performance. We confirm the usefulness of the Multilayered Suspension Mechanism by construction and test of a actual prototype.