Attitude Estimation And Motion Planning Of A Rough Terrain Mobile Robot

Mobile robots for rough terrain became a hotspot of research. This subject is supportedby Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China, called “Trafficability controlwith low-power consumption toward wheeled robot in rough terrain”. This thesis mainlyfocuses on attitude estimation, rough terrain motion planning of a rover on rough terrain.At first, Delaunay triangulation method is employed to build the model of rough terrain.Then the kinematics of a rover on rough terrain is built by coordinate transformation method,and an attitude estimation algorithm is proposed, which can be used to estimate rover’s pitchangle, roll angle and differential angle and rover’s configuration with the information ofdigital elevation map with the consideration of wheel’s sinkage on sandy and loose terrain. Asoftware kit based on MATLAB is built. Simulation and experiment results indicate that thisalgorithm is feasible for rover’s traversability evaluation, force control and stability analysis.Secondly, Based on the terrain model, motion planning of a mobile robot on roughterrain to find a short and smooth path is implemented with the consideration of rover’sstructure, and the algorithm of Dijkstra is used. In fact, sometimes it’s impossible for rover tofollow a designed path because of some uncertain reasons, so, stability and traversabilityanalysis are carried out to evaluate the planed path. In addition, software is developed tosimulate the motion planning of mobile robot on rough terrain.Then, the kinematics model of mobile robot on both rough and flat terrain are built,analyzed and compared. Rover’s fifth wheel kinematics is also derived, based on which a pathfollowing control method is proposed. In addition, experiments on flat and rough terrain arecarried out to inspect the feasibility of path following algorithm.Finally, the software of control system is designed based on the test and integration ofeach system component, which makes it possible for rover’s control. Experiments of the roveron flat and rough terrain are carried out to test rover’s control model. In addition,traversability of rover on rough terrain is analyzed.