I work at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. In our mechatronics research group we are looking for a robust wheeled outdoor mobile ground robot that can be used for several research projects on topics such as outdoor navigation and autonomous sample taking. It must have a payload of 75kg and max weight of around 100kg. Moreover, we want to have an accurate (+/-1 cm, +/-5 degrees) estimation of the pose of the robot. However, this last part could be purchased separately from the mobile platform. As we aim to use the platform in agriculture, it must withstand dust, sand, water, rain, mud, etc. Of course the platform must be able to work with ROS and preferably ROS 2 out of the box.
Do you know any supplier or robot that we are missing in this list? It would also be nice if we could add a mobile robot builder from the Netherlands to our list.
We have robots.ros.org. That website is a bit long in the tooth, but we have the capability to create a similar list using the new ros.org. If someone curated a new list I would gladly help get it on the new ros.org.
This would be a great project for a student interested in joining the ROS community. If you would like more information let me know.
The Intermode robot does not seem suitable for applications in agriculture to me. For the Capra robot I am not sure yet. It seems really robust and rugged, but the wheels in the middle make them less suitable for the applications we need.
After much deliberation, we have decided to go for the Hunter 2.0 robot from AgileX. One of the reasons is that it looks nicely engineered (from the videos) and it has ackermann steering. As we will also often drive around in our offices, we think that ackermann is better than skid steering for the indoor part. We have added some “agricultural” wheels to the robot to make it suitable for driving on fields.
