SKD-1: A Modular Skid-Steer Unmanned Ground Vehicle Platform for Robotics Research

This work presents the design, construction and operation of the SKD-1, a modular skid-steer unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) developed as a low-cost research platform for mobile robotics applications. The platform integrates a differential skid-steer drive system, a Raspberry Pi-based onboard computer, and a microcontroller-based control layer implemented using an STM32 microcontroller. The sensing system includes light detection and ranging (LiDAR), global navigation satellite system (GNSS), and an inertial measurement unit (IMU), enabling experiments in localization, mapping, and autonomous navigation. The software architecture is based on the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 framework, relying on standard ROS 2 packages for perception, mapping, and path planning, with the custom hardware-interface layer being the only non-standard software component. The mechanical and electronic subsystems were designed with a modular architecture that facilitates maintenance, sensor replacement, and hardware upgrades. The primary contribution of this work is the open-hardware design, integration, and documentation of a reproducible robotics testbed, motivated by the prohibitive cost of commercial platforms in resource-constrained research contexts. Indoor and outdoor experiments—covering velocity-tracking, SLAM, and waypoint-navigation trials—demonstrate the functional integration of the sensing, actuation, and computing subsystems.