Distributed Tactile Senser for Tracked Vehicle Robots - 5th Report: Sensor Calibration and Contact Location Sensing on Step

摘要

This paper proposes a tactile crawler which is a crawler vehicle equipped with distributed tactile sensor system. Electric wirings of tactile sensors are a big problem with apply a number of sensors to each crawler shoe, because a crawler rotates continuously. The tactile crawler solved this problem. It was designed to estimate contact locations and frictional forces of the crawler by sensing inclination of each shoe using inclination sensors attached on the inside crawler frame. In order to measure the inclination of the shoe optically, a special reflector whose inclination was reflected in its reflection intensity was proposed and evaluated. The inclination of each shoe in running over a step was measured by the prototype of tactile crawler. Estimations of contact location of the crawler using inclination distribution of shoes were evaluated.