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1 Introduction
At the 1996 International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), several panelists stated that the academic research going out on their labs often does not produce visible results until later. Fundamental research is quite distant to practical and useful day-to-day applications. The industrial or commercial sector rarely benefits from the academic research ([22] Pack et al. , 1997). Although many researchers have shifted their focus to better suit people's needs and solve practical problems, there are still few examples of success achieved in short periods of time.
The project here presented is focused to deliver a commercial product in a very narrow time frame. Researchers at the Automation and Robotics Laboratory of University of Minho have been developing autonomous robots since 1998 ([18] Machado et al. , 1999b). Focusing on vision systems ([17] Machado et al. , 1999a; [16] Lima et al. , 2001) and different mobile platforms ([28] Ribeiro et al. , 2004; [21] Pacheco et al. , 2008; [29] Ribeiro et al. , 2007), the group has contributed to improve people's life by the use of autonomous or semi-autonomous mobile platforms ([27] Ribeiro, 2007).
The idea of developing an autonomous mobile robot which could collect golf balls came from the fact that driving ranges accumulate over 10,000 balls per day and requires an intensive and tedious human labor even when accomplished with the help of motorized devices ([21] Pacheco et al. , 2008). To perform such task a successful device would have to be able to maintain clear a 25,000 m2 field, collecting about 10,000 balls per day, avoiding obstacles and climbing slopes up to 20°. It should operate autonomously and be resistant to corrosion since it would be navigating on external environment. Additional to these requirements the robot should also be efficient, maximizing the number of balls collected over the travelled distance. This paper describes the research and development work carried out to develop a commercial robot that responds to this ambitious goal.
First, a detailed problem analysis and product development strategy is presented. The list of requirements and technical specifications is established. The following section introduces the final concept that meets the identified requirements and describes the methods to validate the hardware and functional behavior. Afterwards, autonomous navigation...