Motion planning of a wheeled mobile robot with slip-free motion capability on a smooth uneven surface

• Published in: Proceedings. 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.98CH36146) Vol. 4; pp. 3727 - 3732 vol.4
• Main Authors: Chol, B.J., Sreenivasan, S.V.
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 1998
• Subjects: Axles; Force control; Kinematics; Laplace equations; Mechanical engineering; Mobile robots; Motion control; Motion planning; Vehicles; Wheels
• ISBN: 078034300X; 9780780343009
• ISSN: 1050-4729; 2577-087X
• DOI: 10.1109/ROBOT.1998.681420

The motion of a wheeled mobile robot on uneven terrain leads to asymmetry in the position of the wheel-terrain contact locations. This asymmetry has important kinematic and dynamic implications for several of the wheeled mobile robots studied in literature. It leads to kinematic slipping at the wheel-ground contacts-this slip is required for the vehicle to possess functional mobility. This slip leads to unpredictable load distribution in the system and poor dead-reckoning. This article presents a motion planning algorithm for a class of terrain adaptive mobile robots (TAMR) that possess slip-free motion capability on uneven terrain. The motion planning algorithm can be divided into two phases. Phase I is a global (coarse) search for a potentially feasible path on the uneven terrain. Phase II involves refining this path using a thorough mechanics (kinematic/force analysis) approach to confirm its feasibility. It should be noted that the kinematic analysis on uneven terrain involves solution of a mixed holonomic-nonholonomic set of equations with characteristics that are distinct from that of mobile robots on even ground. This article only addresses "smooth" uneven terrain whose curvature characteristics are such that a wheel never possesses multiple contacts with the terrain.