Prediction of Maneuverability and Efficiency for a Mobile Robot on Rough Terrain through the development of a Testbed for Analysis of Robot-terrain interaction

Abstract

This paper focuses on development of a testbed for analysis of robot-terrain interaction on rough terrain and also, through one wheel driving experiments using this testbed, prediction of maximum velocity and acceleration of UGV. Firstly, from the review regarding previous researches for terrain modeling, the main variables for measurement are determined. A testbed is developed to measure main variables related to robot-terrain interaction. Experiments are performed on three kinds of rough terrains (grass, gravel, and sand) and traction-slip curves are obtained using the data of the drawbar pull and slip ratio. Traction-slip curves are used to predict driving performance of UGV on rough terrain. Maximum velocity and acceleration of UGVs are predicted by the simple kinematics and dynamics model of two kinds of 4-wheel mobile robots. And also, driving efficiency of UGVs is predicted to reduce energy consumption while traversing rough terrains.