Design and simulation of a mobile tour-guide robot for museum guidance

Abstract

This thesis aims at building a realistic design of a fully autonomous social mobile robot act as a tour guide to the visitors in museums and that can give information about the museum and the exhibits. It should define all the parts robot need such as locomotion mechanism, sensors, batteries, motors, body, control algorithms and methods required to accomplish its objective. Three dimensional modeling of the robot according to this design, building a virtual museum and dynamic agents, based on a real museum, in a simulation environment for further research and progress are also accomplished. Also, to verify the design, a fuzzy controller based on a layered behavior-based approach, has developed to control the robot. The behaviors used by the robot include going to target point, avoiding obstacle, avoiding human in front of it by speaking and waiting the visitors behind who are following him.