Mechanical modularity for e-puck3 education robot

This master project had as main goal the research of mechanical solutions to provide modularity of mechanical components mounted on e-puck3 mobile robot, an educational tool used for future generations of students. To this aim, several gearbox designs were made by providing flexibility in terms of: reduction ratio, exploited materials and occupied volume. After that, an deep analysis of one of the possible robot configurations (2-wheeled inverted pendulum) led to characterize the robot dynamics by means of non-linear equations found both through Lagrangian and Newton approaches. The dynamic was simulated on Simulink implementing different control techniques which gave good performances letting the user to easily play with some control parameters to obtain the desired robot behavior. In addition, to prevent slipping conditions during motion, an accurate analysis was made by looking at the physical correlations established among mechanical aspects such as: distance of pendulum body center of mass (CoM), friction coefficient between wheel and ground, weight ratio between wheel and pendulum body. Finally a gearbox was designed to give e-puck3 performances similar to EduMip robot, simulating its behaviour on Simulink and validating the motor choice (Maxon Brushless DC motor) made before the start of this project.