Kinematic Modeling of a Six Wheeled Differential
Drive Intelligent Robot and Potential Field Method
to Attain Obstacle Avoidance Capability
Makhluk H. Prio and Fernando Rios
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Georgia Southern University
Statesboro, GA, USA
mp07779@georgiasouthern.edu, frios@georgiasouthern.edu
Abstract—This paper presents the kinematic modeling of a six-
wheeled differential-drive mobile robot on the basis of potential
field method to avoid obstacles.The position of the robot in the
simulation is tested from an initial point to a final point in
presence of a rectangular shaped obstacle and obstacle avoidance
by the robot is observed. The entire kinematic modeling and
testing are conducted using MATLAB Simulink.
Index Terms—Differential drive, kinematic modeling, obstacle
avoidance, potential field, reactive control
I. I NTRODUCTION
Immense development in the field of robotics brings forth
intelligent enough mobile robots to autonomously perform
complicated tasks such as exploration in hazardous areas, res-
cuing injured people in disasters, distributing medicine inside
hospitals, providing physical security to critical infrastructures
in industries etc.[1]. Developing mobile robots is an arduous
and time consuming task. As most of the robotics projects
are time-consuming and costly to develop, it is very important
to have a specific mobile robotic simulation model for the
purpose of research and development [2].
Kinematics is study of the mathematics of motion without
considering the forces that affect the motion. It describes the
geometric relationships that govern the system as well as deals
with the control parameters and behavior of a system in state
space. To attain better obstacle avoidance capability is a must
for a differential mobile robot to navigate properly. Under-
standing the kinematics of different mobile robots provide
platform to design navigation controllers for them. They also
provide constraints on the motion of the robots which should
be taken into consideration before doing any kind of navigation
planning [2].
Reactive control and planning control are the two most
ubiquitously used navigation techniques. Reactive control is
a low level control in which the robot navigates in the
environment while avoiding collision with real-time obstacles
using its sensors. On the other hand, the planning control
technique doesn’t utilize the real-time information from robot’s
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workspace [3],[4]. Robot’s motion profile is generated before
the robot has even moved in this technique.
This paper represents a MATLAB Simulink kinematic
model of a six wheeled differential drive autonomous naviga-
tion robot with obstacle avoidance capability. Reactive control
technique has been used due to its capability to deal with the
issues of real-time obstacle avoidance [4]. Among the many
reactive control techniques described in the literature, potential
field method [4],[5] is implemented in this work due to its’
simplicity[4] and time efficiency.
The paper is organized as follows. The background on
kinematic modeling, potential field method, and assumptions
we have for our work are described in section II.The con-
struction of our robot is briefly interpreted in section III.
The MATLAB Simulink kinematic model for our robot is
developed in section IV. Section V presents the simulation
results. Lastly, conclusion is included in section VI.
II. BACKGROUND
Designing an intelligent controller is a must to build an
autonomous mobile robot capable of performing complicated
tasks [2]. An intelligent controller aids the robot to move
from one place to another while avoiding collision. One of the
notable steps in order to design an controller is to understand
the mechanical behavior of mobile robots, i.e, kinematics and
dynamics of the system [6].Kinematic model is also helpful in
developing optimal use of energy when a robot is navigating
and to develop a hybrid control system for navigating the robot
A. Kinematic Modeling
Deriving a kinematic model for the whole robot’s motion
is a bottom-up process. Each individual wheel contributes to
robot’s motion and, at the same time, imposes constraints
on robot’s motion. Wheels are tied together based on robot
chassis geometry, and therefore their constraints combine to
form constraints on the overall motion of the robot’s chassis.
But the forces and constraints of each wheel must be expressed
with respect to a clear and consistent reference frame. This is
particularly important in mobile robotics because of its self-
contained and mobile nature; a clear mapping between global
and local frames of reference is required [6]. Rotational speed
of the motors attached to the wheels is the driving vector of
a differential drive mobile robot. The robot performs various
rotations and translations due to the difference in the speed of
the motors [2].
In the literature, a three wheeled differential drive robot with
two rear drive wheels and a freely movable castor wheel in
the front like Fig.1. was proposed [2],[7].
Fig. 1. The Generalized Mobile Robot: A Simplified Diagram
In Fig.1,the axes X and Y define the arbitrary inertial base
on the plane as a global frame of reference.The rear drive
wheels have the same radius of r and they are separated
a 2b distance apart from each other. The speed of the left
and right rear drive wheels are identified as ωL and ωR
respectively. Speed of the DC motors and the wheels were
assumed identical [2].
The position of the robot in the global frame of reference
could be represented by vectors and is given by [2]
⎛ ⎞
x the goal, the stronger the force is.
ζ = ⎝y ⎠ (1)
θ following three assumptions[2].
Again, if θ is the heading of the robot, v is the linear
velocity and ω is the rotational velocity of the robot, then,
the kinematics of the robot is defined by [2]
x = vcosθ
y = vsinθ
θ=ω
The relationship between v and ω was described by [2]
r(ωL + ωR )
v=
2
r(ωR − ωL )
ω=
2b
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B. Potential Field Method
Potential field method is one of many reactive control
navigation techniques in which the mobile robot moving under
the influence of a potential field created as a result of attraction
by the goal point and repulsion by the obstacles is represented
by a point in a configuration space[2],[8].
Considering that, the force applied by the goal on the robot
is Fatt and the force applied by the obstacle is Frep ,the
resultant force Fres on the robot is given by [2]
Fres = Fatt + Frep (7)
This resultant force is used to decide the direction of motion
for the robot and to calculate the rotational velocities of the
wheels of the robot [2]. In other words, it can be said that
resultant potential field is the summation of attractive potential
field by the goal on the robot and repelling potential field by
the obstacle on the robot.
C. Assumptions for Our Work
We assume both attractive potential field and repelling
potential field as included in the potential field method for
our work.
1) Assumption made for the attractive potential field: We
assume that goalpoint is a circle with a very small radius of
rg and the coordinates of the center of the goalpoint are xg
and yg . If the position of the robot is (x,y), then the distance
is given by [2]

d = (xg − x)2 + (yg − y)2 (8)
The force by which the goal attracts the goal is determined
by how fast the robot changes its coordinates towards the goal
[2]. The faster the change of coordinates of the robot towards
Considering the field has a spread of s, we have the
if d<rg , Δx = Δy = 0
if rg ≤d≤s+r, Δx = α(d-rg )cosθ
if d>s+rg , Δx = αscosθ and Δy = αssinθ
The first assumption demonstrates the robot is not moving
when it is within circle of the goal and no force from the goal
(2) acts upon the robot.
The second assumption implies that when the robot is
outside the circle of goal but inside the spread of the field,the
(3) force by which the goal attracts the robot is proportional to
the distance between the goal and the robot.
The third assumption suggests that when the robot is outside
(4)
the spread of the field, the force by which the goal attracts
the robot will be maximum and it will be proportional to the
spread s of the field.
Thus, the above three assumptions collectively depict, in
(5) attractive potential field, the coordinates will change faster if
the robot is far away from the goal or vice-versa. Also, the
parameter α is always greater than 0 and it defines the strength
(6) of the attractive potential field.The higher the value of α, the
faster the robot moves towards the goal.The angle θg by which
the robot moves towards the goal is given by,
yg − y
θg = tan -1 ( ) (9)
xg − x
2) Assumption made for the repelling potential field: In this
subsection, it is assumed that the obstacle is enclosed by an
imaginary circle of radius r0 . This circle works as a barrier
for the robot which it can’t cross. Whenever the robot comes
closer to this imaginary circle barrier, it only gets repelled.
Considering that, the co-ordinates of the center of the
obstacle are x0 and y0 . If the position of the robot is (x,y),
then the distance (d) between the obstacle and robot is given
by[2], Fig. 2. Robot Used for Our Work


d= (x0 − x)2 + (y0 − y)2 (10)
Again, considering the field has a spread of s, we have the
following two assumptions [2].
if d<r0 , Δx = -βdcosθ and Δy = -βdsinθ
if d>r0 , Δx = Δy = 0
The first assumption implies that inside the circle of ob-
stacle, the repelling force by the obstacle on the robot is
proportional to β and it points out from the center of the
obstacle. Repelling force determines how fast the robot moves
away from the obstacle. β, is used to determine the strength
of repelling field, and will always be greater than 0.
The second assumption suggests that outside the circle of
obstacle, no repelling force on the robot by the obstacle
sustains, i.e., no repelling force is applied on the robot by the
obstacle if the robot is away from the vicinity of the obstacle.
3) Assumption made for the resultant potential field: It is
assumed that the sum of attractive potential field and repelling
potential field give the resultant potential field. The resultant
field brings forth the linear velocity, v and the direction of
motion,θ of the robot. These are given by the following
formulas [2].
 tablish the assumptions we made in Section II , part C and
v = (x0 + xg )2 + (y0 + yg )2 (11)
y0 + yg
θ = tan -1 ( ) (12)
x0 + xg
III. C ONSTRUCTION OF O UR ROBOT
We pick a six wheeled mobile robot for our work in order
to get better traction on different surfaces. The robot follows
differential drive mechanism with three wheels on each side of
the robot’s body. DC motors and motor controller are mounted
underneath the robot base, while batteries and microcontroller
are mounted on the robot base. Fig. 2 shows the setup of our
robot.
IV. MATLAB S IMULINK K INEMATIC M ODEL FOR O UR
ROBOT
To develop kinematic model for our robot, the following
steps are followed.
Step 1: The first step to start the kinematic modeling in
MATLAB Simulink is to measure different parameters of
motor which are responsible for energy losses. The measured
parameters of motor are armature resistance, armature induc-
tance, armature capacitance, moment of inertia, and angular
velocity.
The armature resistance is measured by doing a locked rotor
test. Following equation [2] is used to measure the armature
resistance by keeping the back emf constant, Kb equal to zero.
V = Ra I a + K b ω (13)
where V is the terminal voltage, Ra and Ia are the armature
resistance and armature current respectively, Kb is the back
emf constant, and ω is the angular velocity of the motor.
Afterwards, armature inductance and armature capacitance
are measured using a LCR meter.
Step 2: The next step in the process is use the measured
parameters in step 1 to obtain the output of the plant which
is the x, y and θ.The modeling of the plant is completed by
this step.
Step 3: Finally, MATLAB Function block is used to es-
potential field method is implemented successfully to avoid
the obstacles .The outputs of this MATLAB function block are
linear velocity, v and the direction of motion of the robot,θ.
V. S IMULATION R ESULTS
Fig.3 presents the complete kinematic model of the
robot.The input to the model is the position of the goal. It
shows the response on the robot’s position when a rectangu-
lar shaped obstacle is inserted into the kinematic model as
input.The result of the obstacle avoidance is shown in Fig.4.
VI. C ONCLUSION
Kinematic modeling of a six wheeled differential drive
intelligent robot based on potential field method has been
presented. A smooth trajectory is achieved for the robot
from the kinematic modeling to avoid obstacles. The obstacle
avoidance capability of the robot is observed in presence of a
rectangular shaped obstacle.

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 Fig. 3. Kinematic Modeling of the Robot for Avoiding a Rectangular Shaped Obstacle

[5] O. Khatib, ”Real-time Obstacle Avoidance for Manipulators and Mobile

Robots,” Proceeding of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and
Automation,1985, pp.500-505.
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Robot, London, The MIT Press, 2004.
[7] C.H. Kim and B.K. Kim, ”Minimum-Energy Translational Trajectory
Generation for Differential-Driven Wheeled Mobile Robot,” Journal of
Intelligent and Robotic Systems, vol.49, pp. 367-383, 2007.
[8] L.Yin,Y.Yin, and C.-J.Lin, “A New Potential Field Method for Mobile
Robot Path Planning in the Dynamic Environments,”Asian Journal of
Control, vol.11, no.2, pp. 214 – 225, 2009.

Fig. 4. Robot Avoiding a Rectangular Shaped Obstacle

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