In this chapter, we will discuss the design and working of ChefBot hardware and selection of its hardware components. In the previous chapter, we designed and simulated the basic robot framework in a hotel environment using Gazebo and ROS, and tested various measurements like robot body mass, motor torque, wheel diameter, and so on. Also, we tested the autonomous navigation capability of ChefBot in a hotel environment.
To achieve this goal in hardware, we need to select all hardware components and find how to interconnect all these components. We know that the main functionality of this robot is navigation; this robot will have the ability to navigate from the start position to the end position without any collision with its surroundings. We will discuss the different sensors and hardware components required to achieve this goal. We will see a block diagram representation and its explanation, and also discuss the main working of the robot. Finally, we need to select the components required to build the robot. We can also see the online stores where we can purchase these components.
If you have a TurtleBot, you may skip this chapter because it is only for those who need to create the robot hardware. Let's see what specifications we have to meet in the hardware design. The robot hardware mainly includes robot chassis, sensors, actuators, controller boards, and PC.
In this section, we will discussing some of the important specifications that we mentioned in Chapter 2, Mechanical Design of a Service Robot. The final robot prototype will meet the following specifications:
- Simple and cost effective robot chassis design: The robot chassis design should be simple and cost effective.
- Autonomous navigation functionality: The robot should autonomously navigate and it should contain necessary sensors for doing this.
- Long Battery life: The robot should have a long battery life in order to work continuously. The working time should be greater than 1 hour.
- Obstacle avoidance: The robot should be able to avoid static and dynamic objects in the surroundings.
The robot hardware design should meet these specifications. Let's look at one of the possible ways of interconnecting the components in this robot. The next section shows the block diagram of a robot and explains it.