ERL Emergency is an outdoor multi-domain robotic

This paper presents a path following controller that is suitable for asymmetrical planar robots with significant mass and limited motor torques. The controller is resistant against environmental forces, and inaccurate estimates of robot's inertia, by estimating their effects with Unscented Kalman Filter. The controller outputs wheel torque commands which take in account the motor torque limits and given relative priority of internal control elements. The method presented is thoroughly explained and the simulation results demonstrate the performance of the controller.

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This paper presents Kinetic Energy Difference (KED) as a metric for collision proximity. The calculation of KED for differentially driven robots is explained, along with an example obstacle avoidance algorithm that utilizes it. This example algorithm is computationally efficient and simulations show that it is capable of guiding robots with slow dynamics through narrow corridors.

Quintic Bézier splines are capable of dynamic adaptive path changes in curvature continuous fashion. This paper presents a general purpose method for synchronizing the turning and steering rates of a mobile robot's wheels according to a given velocity profile when traversing a quintic Bézier spline or some other differentiable parametric curve. The presented method is applicable to any positioning of the wheels and a part of a more extensive effort to realize adaptive behavior in real-life wheeled robots. Spatial vector algebra was used with the practical benefit of simplified equations, which made the design and implementation of the synchronization method simpler and easier to implement. This paper gives brief overviews of quintic Bézier splines and spatial vectors. The successful synchronization of wheel motions is demonstrated with two simulated examples.