Warning system for crawler-type mobile robot with passive sub-crawler

Abstract

This paper describes a remote control system for a crawler-type mobile robot with a passive sub-crawler. Such a system is greatly advantageous because it has an essentially compliant mechanism in that the sub-crawler angle can be adapted to a road surface shape. Its operation is extremely simple, and it is only necessary to control the movement direction and driving speed in comparison with the case of controlling active sub-crawlers. However, a robot with a passive sub-crawler cannot recover from a situation in which it is stuck. The operator must select a traversable route for unknown rough terrain using only the information obtained from camera images and some sensor data from the robot. In this study, a remote control system for a crawler robot with a passive sub-crawler is developed based on a warning system. The currently selected route is evaluated by calculating the stabilization for the robot when falling down in the roll and pitch directions. Experimental results obtained using a prototype crawler robot with a passive sub-crawler demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed system.