Design of lightweight robots for over-snow mobility

Lever, J. H.; Shoop, Sally A.; Bernhard, R.I.

doi:10.1016/j.jterra.2008.11.003

Cited by 11 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…This will result in the tracks loosing traction while attempting to develop thrust for mobility and the vehicle digging itself deeper into the snow. Even a tracked vehicle having low ground pressure and generating high enough thrust to overcome snow-compaction resistance may result in breaking traction because of shear failure in the snow 1 . Besides mobility problems, snow-covered terrain can also pose other problems for lightweight vehicles.…”

Section: Over-snow Mobility Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the HimBot was designed to have large ground clearance (15 cm) and uniform track pressures below 5 kPa to make sure that sinkage of the vehicle remains less than its ground clearance. Table 1 compares the vehicle parameters of the HimBot with SnoBot and SnoBot-2, developed by CRREL, USA 1 . weight (w) of the vehicle is taken in Newton (N).…”

Section: Design Details 51 Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Snow covered terrain poses many challenges for small and lightweight ground vehicles 1 . Sinking in snow, resisting to compaction of snow, losing traction and snow entering into the driving system are a few to name 1 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sinking in snow, resisting to compaction of snow, losing traction and snow entering into the driving system are a few to name 1 . The mobility of wheeled vehicles is limited by deep snow where the snow depth is greater than about twice the ground clearance of the vehicle.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Unmanned Tracked Vehicle for Snow Research Applications

2016

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Lightweight robotic vehicles can be designed for over-snow mobility to carry out a variety of snow and glacier related studies like carrying out ground penetrating radar and global positioning system surveys, collecting snow samples, and carrying out sub-surface experiments on terrain that are dangerous for human movement. Sinkage, resistance to snow compaction, loss of traction and ingestion of snow into the driving system are some of the challenges that an unmanned lightweight tracked vehicle faces in snowbound terrain. In present work, a lightweight and unmanned remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is conceptualized and developed as a technological solution. In this study, design and features of this vehicle, named HimBot, are presented along with the results obtained from tests carried over snow at one of the field research stations of SASE. The outcome of this work will help in developing an optimised design of an ROV for over-snow mobility for a variety of applications.

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Section: Over-snow Mobility Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Design Details 51 Design Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Unmanned Tracked Vehicle for Snow Research Applications

2016

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“…The mobility of several small tracked vehicles moving in natural and deep-snow environments is discussed in [8,9]. The terramechanics theory for motion on snow presented in [10] can be applied to improve the performance of robots moving on snow.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Image-Based Navigation for the SnowEater Robot Using a Low-Resolution USB Camera

et al. 2015

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This paper reports on a navigation method for the snow-removal robot called SnowEater. The robot is designed to work autonomously within small areas (around 30 m 2 or less) following line segment paths. The line segment paths are laid out so as much snow as possible can be cleared from an area. Navigation is accomplished by using an onboard low-resolution USB camera and a small marker located in the area to be cleared. Lowresolution cameras allow only limited localization and present significant errors. However, these errors can be overcome by using an efficient navigation algorithm to exploit the merits of these cameras. For stable robust autonomous snow removal using this limited information, the most reliable data are selected and the travel paths are controlled. The navigation paths are a set of radially arranged line segments emanating from a marker placed in the environment area to be cleared, in a place where it is not covered by snow. With this method, by using a low-resolution camera (640 × 480 pixels) and a small marker (100 × 100 mm), the robot covered the testing area following line segments. For a reference angle of 4.5° between line paths, the average results are: 4° for motion on hard floor and 4.8° for motion on compacted snow. The main contribution of this study is the design of a path-following control algorithm capable of absorbing the errors generated by a low-cost camera. OPEN ACCESSRobotics 2015, 4 121

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Autonomous GPR Surveys using the Polar Rover Yeti

Lever

Delaney

Ray

et al. 2012

Journal of Field Robotics

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The National Science Foundation operates stations on the ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland to investigate Earth's climate history, life in extreme environments, and the evolution of the cosmos. Understandably, logistics costs predominate budgets due to the remote locations and harsh environments involved. Currently, manual ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) surveys must preceed vehicle travel across polar ice sheets to detect subsurface crevasses or other voids. This exposes the crew to the risks of undetected hazards. We have developed an autonomous rover, Yeti, specifically to conduct GPR surveys across polar ice sheets. It is a simple four‐wheel‐drive, battery‐powered vehicle that executes autonomous surveys via GPS waypoint following. We describe here three recent Yeti deployments, two in Antarctica and one in Greenland. Our key objective was to demonstrate the operational value of a rover to locate subsurface hazards. Yeti operated reliably at −30 °C, and it has has good oversnow mobility and adequate GPS accuracy for waypoint‐following and hazard georeferencing. It has acquired data on hundreds of crevasse encounters to improve our understanding of heavily crevassed traverse routes and to develop automated crevasse‐detection algorithms. Importantly, it helped to locate a previously undetected buried building at the South Pole. Yeti can improve safety by decoupling survey personnel from the consequences of undetected hazards. It also enables higher‐quality systematic surveys to improve hazard‐detection probabilities, increase assessment confidence, and build datasets to understand the evolution of these regions. Yeti has demonstrated that autonomous vehicles have great potential to improve the safety and efficiency of polar logistics. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

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Design of lightweight robots for over-snow mobility

Cited by 11 publications

References 2 publications

An Unmanned Tracked Vehicle for Snow Research Applications

An Unmanned Tracked Vehicle for Snow Research Applications

Image-Based Navigation for the SnowEater Robot Using a Low-Resolution USB Camera

Autonomous GPR Surveys using the Polar Rover Yeti

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