Dynamic Operational Limits for a Stair-Climbing, Tracked, Urban Robot
Brant A. Ross, World Congress and Exposition Military Vehicle Modeling and Simulation Session, April 2006, 8 pages.
Abstract
There is substantial interest in the development of man-portable unmanned guided vehicles (UGVs) to perform surveillance in urban environments. Many studies have been done on the control logic needed to guide the vehicles in autonomous and semi-autonomous modes. Less work has been done to assess the effectiveness of the controlled inputs on mobility performance.
How Multibody Dynamics Simulation Technology is Used
A detailed model of a tracked robot was developed and simulated using RecurDyn. The dynamic limitations of the robot when climbing stairs were identified for two extremes of driving torque. A basic controller was designed within RecurDyn which could adjust the driving torque to maintain stability. RecurDyn simulations provided a way for this design to be accomplished in a time efficient manner.
