Kinematics and interaction analysis for tracked mobile manipulators

This paper presents a systematic method to establish the kinematics model for a tracked mobile manipulator on firm grounds, with consideration of the interactive motions between the tracks and the terrain as well as those between the tracked vehicle and the onboard manipulator. Kinematics modeling for a tracked mobile manipulator is an intractable problem, because there are infinite number of contact points between the tracks and the terrain which makes slippage unavoidable. The track-terrain and vehicle-manipulator interactions make the problem even more complex and difficult to solve since the motion of the onboard manipulator and the centrifugal forces during moderate or high speed motion will give rise to transfer of the load distribution, which may affect the longitudinal and lateral tractive forces and the resistance. This work aims at developing a general kinematics modeling approach, which lays a solid foundation for automatic control of tracked mobile manipulators.

[1]  Yangmin Li,et al.  Real-Time Tip-Over Prevention and Path Following Control for Redundant Nonholonomic Mobile Modular Manipulators via Fuzzy and Neural-Fuzzy Approaches , 2006 .

[2]  Yangmin Li,et al.  Control of a mobile modular manipulator moving on a slope , 2004, Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics, 2004. ICM '04..

[3]  G.G. Wang,et al.  Design of turning control for a tracked vehicle , 1990, IEEE Control Systems Magazine.

[4]  Malay K. Kar,et al.  Prediction of track forces in skid-steering of military tracked vehicles , 1987 .

[5]  Jo Yung Wong,et al.  Theory of ground vehicles , 1978 .

[6]  Zhejun Fan,et al.  Tracked mobile robot control: Hybrid approach , 1995 .

[7]  Salvador Pedraza,et al.  Approximating Kinematics for Tracked Mobile Robots , 2005, Int. J. Robotics Res..

[8]  M. Kitano,et al.  An analysis of horizontal plane motion of tracked vehicles , 1977 .

[9]  Jo Yung Wong,et al.  Terramechanics and off-road vehicles , 1989 .

[10]  Bruce Maclaurin.  A skid steering model with track pad flexibility , 2007 .

[11]  Zvi Shiller,et al.  Trajectory planning of tracked vehicles , 1993, [1993] Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[12]  Hugh F. Durrant-Whyte,et al.  Estimation of track-soil interactions for autonomous tracked vehicles , 1997, Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[13]  Stergios I. Roumeliotis,et al.  Algorithms and sensors for small robot path following , 2002, Proceedings 2002 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (Cat. No.02CH37292).

[14]  Parvaneh Saeedi,et al.  An autonomous excavator with vision-based track-slippage control , 2005, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology.

[15]  Fahim F. Alhimdani.  Steering analysis of articulated tracked vehicles , 1982 .

[16]  Zheng-Dong Ma,et al.  A Track-Wheel-Terrain Interaction Model for Dynamic Simulation of Tracked Vehicles , 2002 .