Omni-Directional Navigation Mobile Robot using Radar Ultrasonic Sensors

Abstract

Mobile robots often struggle with manoeuvring in confined indoor environments, where conventional wheel configurations limit flexibility and low-cost sensing systems may fail to detect nearby obstacles reliably. This study presents the development of an affordable omni-directional mobile robot equipped with three omni-wheels to achieve seamless 360° holonomic motion. A servo-driven HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor performs radar-like scanning from 0° to 180°, providing real-time environmental information to an Arduino Uno executing a reactive obstacle avoidance algorithm. The proposed system was evaluated in cluttered indoor environments and demonstrated stable motion with response times below 0.6 s, ultrasonic sensing accuracy improvements exceeding 60% after calibration and autonomous navigation success rates above 90%. The results indicate that low-cost sensing and control hardware can provide reliable autonomous navigation performance for educational, laboratory and small-scale service robotic applications.