Digital Twinning for Closed-Loop Control of a Three-Wheeled Omnidirectional Mobile Robot

Mobile robots are becoming increasingly important in industrial and technological applications. One of the most important characteristics of an autonomous mobile robot is its capacity to navigate around the operating space, avoiding obstacles and locating the next location it needs to arrive at. However, due to the high initial costs of production and implementation, digital models of these robots are created first. Digital twined models are created using real-time simulation software, in which multiple aspects are studied regarding the system’s control and modeling to ensure that the implementation of the robot in real-life is as cost-efficient and error-free as can it be. In this paper, a digital model for a three-wheeled omnidirectional robot is created. This robot can potentially be used in various industrial applications as it can move quickly in any direction from any configuration. A simulation program - Simscape a MATLAB-based library - is used for creating a digital twin model for the robot. A hardware prototype is manufactured and a PID controller is used to measure and validate the performance of the proposed digital model.