| There have been increased interests in mobile robot research due to its many applications in areas such as material handling, explorations in hazardous environments, and military missions under extreme conditions. Many control schemes and robot systems have been developed, yet most of these systems eventually become individual experiments that are unique or specific to particular applications. It is very difficult to verify or reuse the controls developed and build upon the existing knowledge. We argue that it is necessary to develop an integrated experiment and simulation environment equipped with a user-friendly interface to examine existing controls and eventually serve as an experimental testbed for mobile robot research.;The main contributions of this thesis are the design and integration of a hardware in the loop simulation environment for mobile robot control and navigation. We developed an easy to use graphical user interface (GUI) that can provide the users with the overall access to various robot functions including sensor feedback, object recognition, and tools for implementing the control strategies to study robot behaviors. |
