Today there is a large increase in unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) in the military and other various industries. Human lives are in less jeopardy with an operator outside the vehicle, but vehicle safety can be threatened, especially over rough terrain. New UGVs also are being required to travel further and at higher speeds, exponentially raising the risk of rollover during operation. Despite some smaller UGVs being designed to allow rollover, it can be detrimental to a mission for larger-scale vehicles. In order to increase the success rate of UGVs, adaptable stability controllers that can greatly prevent vehicle rollover are being developed. A simple Electronic Stability Controller (ESC), similar to those in todays passenger vehicles, can greatly enhance the robustness of UGVs. By designing, testing, and adapting these ESC systems, unmanned vehicles can perform better with different loading conditions, higher speeds, and on various types of terrain. Simulations have been developed to test the rollover propensities for various ground vehicles and work is being done on validating the results with an experimental vehicle. This paper describes our techniques and reports our ongoing findings.
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