Autonomous Tracked Robots in Planar Off-Road Conditions

This monograph is framed within the context of off-road mobile robotics. In particular, it discusses issues related to modelling, localization, and motion control of tracked mobile robots working in planar slippery conditions. Tracked locomotion constitutes a well-known solution for mobile platforms operating over diverse challenging terrains, for that reason, tracked robotics constitutes an important research field with many applications (e.g. agriculture, mining, search and rescue operations, military activities). The specific topics of this monograph are: historical perspective of tracked vehicles and tracked robots; trajectory-tracking model taking into account slip effect; visual-odometry-based localization strategies; and advanced slip-compensation motion controllers ensuring efficient real-time execution. Physical experiments with a real tracked robot are presented showing the better performance of the suggested novel approaches to known techniques.

Keywords: longitudinal slip, visual odometry, slip-compensation control, robust predictive control, trajectory tracking.

Related subjects: Robotics Mechanical Engineering Mechanics Computer Science Artificial Intelligence - Applications

Presents an extended kinematic model taking into account slip effect, which is validated through physical experiments Demonstrates a localization strategy based on visual odometry and visual compass, which is successfully tested in real off-road conditions A whole navigation architecture is designed for a real off-road mobile robot and validated through physical experiments

Inhalt
Introduction.- Modelling Tracked Robots in Planar O-Road Conditions.- Localization of Tracked Robots in Planar Road Conditions.- Adaptive Motion Controllers for Tracked Robots.- Robust Predictive Motion Controllers for Tracked Robots.- Conclusions and Future Works.