The Autonomous Mobile Robot

KURT2 (figure 1) is a mobile robot platform with a size of 45 cm (length) $\times$ 33 cm (width) $\times$ 26 cm (height) and a weight of 15.6 kg. Equipped with the 3D laser range finder the height increases to 47 cm and weight increases to 22.6 kg. KURT2's maximum velocity is 5.2 m/s (autonomously controlled 4.0 m/s). Two 90W motors are used to power the 6 wheels, whereas the front and rear wheels have no tread pattern to enhance rotating. KURT2 operates for about 4 hours with one battery (28 NiMH cells, capacity: 4500 mAh) charge. The core of the robot is a Pentium-III-600 MHz with 384 MB RAM running Linux. An embedded 16-Bit CMOS microcontroller is used to control the motor..