Continuous mobility of mobile robots with a special ability for overcoming driving failure on rough terrain

摘要

For wheeled mobile robots moving in rough terrains or uncertain environments, driving failure will be encountered when trafficability failure occurs. Continuous mobility of mobile robots with special ability for overcoming driving failure on rough terrain has rarely been considered. This study was conducted using a four-wheel-steering and four-wheel-driving mobile robot equipped with a binocular visual system. First, quasi-static force analysis is carried out to understand the effects of different driving-failure modes on the mobile robot while moving on rough terrain. Secondly, to make the best of the rest of the driving force, robot configuration transformation is employed to select the optimal configuration that can overcome the driving failure. Thirdly, sliding mode control based on back-stepping is adopted to enable the robot achieve continuous trajectory tracking with visual feedback. Finally, the efficacy of the presented approach is verified by simulations and experiments.