Tractive Force Prediction for Unmanned Ground Vehicles in Rough Terrain

Unmanned ground vehicles traversing rough terrain can be applied in a wide range of industries, such as agriculture, defence, mining, space exploration and construction. The interaction dynamics between the vehicle and the terrain play a crucial role in determining the mobility characteristics of the vehicle. The two critical parameters that influence the interaction dynamics are the wheel/track slip and the unknown soil parameters. A method for estimating vehicle slip parameters based on an optical flow algorithm and a sliding mode observer is presented. A tractive force prediction algorithm based on the soil and slip information is developed to predict the traversability of the vehicle. The proposed algorithms are tested and evaluated using test rigs and mobile robots, and the test results are demonstrated in the paper.