Mobile robots is a relatively new research area that is normally considered from several different perspectives mainly, engineering and computer science levels. This paper deals with the engineering level of mobile platforms; i.e. the physical, hardware and mechatronic levels of mobile platforms, and presents complete models for the main hardware components of mobile platforms. The presented models can be used for simulation and control of mobile platforms, and they take into account the hardware limitations, friction force and the topography of the environment for out door navigation.

Proceedings of the First international Conference on Modeling, Simulation & Applied Optimization, ICMSAO/05, American University of Sharjah, UAE on February the 1st, 2005.