Tip-Over Stability-Based Path Planning for a Tracked Mobile Robot Over Rough Terrains

Abstract

Most of the existing path planners for traversing over rough terrains use the single-valued probabilistic properties of the terrain with the extension of considering the robot's dimensions to build the cost function. The present work proposes a path planner for a tracked mobile robot to traverse over rough terrains using the robot's tip-over stability as its cost function. The contacts that the robot makes with the terrain determine the pose of the robot and in turn its tip-over stability. The estimation of the robot's pose is formulated as a linear complementary problem (LCP) and solved using the Lemke's method. We show some examples on searching paths that optimize for various cost functions over a randomly generated rough terrain. We also validate the performance of our pose estimator by comparing their results to those obtained from a dynamic simulator (MSC Adams).

Path planning for a tracked robot traversing uneven terrains based on tip‐over stability

“…In order to realize path planning based on stability, it is necessary to accurately predict the attitude of the robot at any position in the complex terrain. In Jun et al [17], the robot's attitude calculation is interpreted as a contact problem, formulated as a linear complementarity problem (LCP) and solved using the Lemke method [18]. The open dynamic engine (ODE [19]) has been widely used in attitude estimation.…”