Panthera: Design of a reconfigurable pavement sweeping robot

The pavement cleaning is essential to maintain urban hygiene and keep the long stretch of pavements spick and span. This paper reports on the development of novel reconfigurable pavement cleaning robot named Panthera. Reconfiguration in Panthera is gained by the expansion and contraction of the body frame using a single lead screw shaft and linkages mechanism. It gives the capability to reshape itself based on factors like pavement width and pedestrian density. The independent steering action is derived using two in-wheels motors for each steering axis. This imparts the flexibility in motion and make system omnidirectional and allows the convenient movement of the robot in any direction along the pavement. It is powered using onboard batteries that generate lesser noise compared to the existing solution powered with gasoline. The modeling and steering kinematics is presented along with experimental results of the path followed and discussion supporting the robot's capability.