Mobile Carrying Platform: i-Explore

This paper presents the development of mobile transportation robot, i-Explore which has been designed and built by ART (Assistive Robot Team) in University of Hartford since 2018. The main objective of i-Explore is to assist and carry children who have severe physical disabilities in indoor environments, especially for domestic uses. In this paper, the mechanical design and building processes of i-Explore which focused on fast reactiveness and low-cost manufacturing as its main technical design requirements are described first. Then, the kinematic analysis and its implementation in the low-level body controller of the mobile robot are described. Lastly, i-Explore is tested and evaluated both in cleaned and cluttered works spaces with its semi-autonomous motions which are designed for the robot’s navigation in human centered environments.