A NEW TRACTION CONTROL ARCHITECTURE FOR PLANETARY EXPLORATION ROBOTS

Abstract Planetary exploration rovers are often redundantly actuated, for mechanical robustness and reliability purposes. This paper describes the Integral Redistribution Traction Control Architecture (IR-TCA) applied to this category of robots. The Traction Control Architecture of mobile robots is typically composed by independent decoupled PID speed controllers, one for each motor. In this paper it will be demonstrated that this solution is not suitable in redundantly actuated robots. The IR-TCA is a hierarchical cross-coupled controller, a simple variation to the PID architecture, easily scalable for more complex systems. The stability of this Traction Control Architecture will also be demonstrated. Some comparative tests both with a simulator and a real platform will be presented to show the validity of this control architecture.