Design and implementation of a mobile robot for the mechatronic survey

Mechatronic survey has becoming a topic of great interest because of the importance for the sustainability, management and preservation of heritage and historical assets. In fact, the main concerns refer to the accessibility of the sites to inspect and invasiveness of the investigation, which are very often time consuming and high-cost due to security issues. In this paper, we discuss a mechatronic solution for the survey based on a mobile robotic platform, on which equipment and sensors are installed to perform automatic or semi-automatic survey. In this regard, a suitable simulation of the operation is very useful for training and verification of the robot motion capabilities. Simulation tests are reported for the robot carrying equipment, together with experimental tests. The developed solution may be used for indoor or outdoor inspections.