A robotic road sweeper

Abstract

The hardware and software design of a robotic road sweeper is presented. The basic vehicle used is the commercial road sweeper KMR 1200 manufactured by Alfred Karcher GmbH, Germany. This vehicle has been re-designed and augmented by mechanical and electronic components to allow automatic control of both the drive system and the cleaning system. The road sweeper has been further equipped with a navigation system to support autonomous locomotion and operation of the vehicle. The system is intended to clean areas such as the parking space of supermarkets or airports, or factory premises and backyard. The system will be used to handle situations and events which typically occur in public environments which include unknown stationary obstacles such as palettes or containers with goods, parked vehicles or shopping carts left in the workspace, also moving objects such as moving cars or people or animals walking or running across the parking space.