Real-World Modeling of a Pathfinding Robot Using Robot Operating System (ROS)

Abstract: This paper presents a practical approach towards implementing pathfinding algorithms on real-world and low-cost non- commercial hardware platforms. While using robotics simulation platforms as a test-bed for our algorithms we easily overlook real- world exogenous problems that are developed by external factors. Such problems involve robot wheel slips, asynchronous motors, abnormal sensory data or unstable power sources. The real-world dynamics tend to be very painful even for executing simple algorithms like a Wavefront planner or A-star search. This paper addresses designing techniques that tend to be robust as well as reusable for any hardware platforms; covering problems like controlling asynchronous drives, odometry offset issues and handling abnormal sensory feedback. The algorithm implementation medium and hardware design tools have been kept general in order to present our work as a serving platform for future researchers and robotics enthusiast working in the field of path planning robotics.