RomBot2 (RB2) Mobile Ground Inspection Robot for Confined Spaces

A Homemade Robot So You Don't Have to Crawl In Yourself

Mobile ground inspection robot

RomBot2 (RB2) is a teleoperated inspection robot I designed to explore confined and hard-to-reach spaces without having to go in myself. It runs on four JGA25 motors with encoders, is controlled by a Raspberry Pi 5 running ROS2, and communicates live over Wi-Fi with a camera and LIDAR for navigation. It's the successor to my first robot, RomBot, and the result of several months of tuning around networking, startup reliability, and motor control.

— aluminum chassis 22 x 32 cm, DeWalt 20V 5Ah battery, JGA25 motors, BTS7960 controllers

— the Pi 5's role, its link to the ESP32 for motors/pan-tilt/encoders

— Zero 2W camera, LD19 LIDAR

— standalone access point, range, reliability challenges encountered

— the /terrain4 and /lidar_drive2 web pages, backup mode

— video or photos of the robot inside the crawl space