Kinematics of 2-DOF AGVs with Differential Driving Wheels and Caster Wheels Modeling

Abstract

Automated Guided Vehicles (AGV) are increasingly used in the industry for a wide variety of applications such as goods handling and manufacturing. Under the assumption of no slipping and no skidding, the kinematic model does not involve any geometric parameter of caster wheels. However, when the vehicle is carrying heavy loads not well distributed on it, the interaction between caster and driving wheels become significant, and needed to be taken into account. As a first step, this paper proposes a mathematical model based on the kinematics in order to predict the behavior of caster wheels. Simulation results show good prediction of caster wheel orientations in some scenarios relative to the dynamic model of the Webots simulator.