TY - JOUR
T1 - Autonomous Navigation of a Tracked Mobile Robot with Novel Passive Bio-inspired Suspension
AU - Li, Zhengchao
AU - Jing, Xingjian
AU - Sun, Bo
AU - Yu, Jinyong
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received March 31, 2019; revised September 18, 2019 and February 6, 2020; accepted March 25, 2020. Date of publication April 13, 2020; date of current version December 14, 2020. This work was supported in part by the GRF Project of HK RGC No.15206717, a strategic focus area fund of Research Institute of Sustainable Urban Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in part by the funding for Projects of Strategic Importance of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Project Code : 1-ZE1N) and a NSFC project (No. 61673133). This article was presented in part at the 2019 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics, Ilmenau, Germany, March 18–20, 2019. Recommended by Technical Editor Professor J. Dhupia. (Corresponding author: Xingjian Jing.) Zhengchao Li is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, and also with the Research Institute of Intelligent Control and System, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China (e-mail: [email protected]).
Publisher Copyright:
© 1996-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - Most mobile robots have very simple passive suspension based on conventional mass-spring-damper methods, which bring a trade-off between loading capacity and vibration isolation, or no suspension at all with only hard contact between wheels and ground. This article presents a tracked mobile robot with a unique passive suspension, which is constructed by using a bio-inspired animal-limb-like structure, to guarantee both loading capacity and vibration isolation performance. With the novel bio-inspired suspension, the loading capacity, riding comfort and obstacle negotiation capability of the robot in various rough ground environments can be significantly enhanced. However, 'soft suspension' may lead to 'slippery track' due to rough terrain or irregular obstacles. To solve this problem, an advanced autonomous navigation is realized. A novel double layer nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) architecture is adopted for optimizations of trajectory tracking. The global trajectory tracking is optimized strategically in the upper layer NMPC at a low frequency, while the local dynamics such as slippage during obstacle negotiation is timely captured in the lower layer NMPC at a high frequency. Experimental results clearly demonstrate that the superior passive suspension can efficiently absorb strong shock induced by obstacle crossing and hence guarantee smooth motion, and the double layer NMPC can effectively improve transient response and tracking accuracy ideally. This article would present a benchmark result to the design and control of mobile robots working on rough grounds.
AB - Most mobile robots have very simple passive suspension based on conventional mass-spring-damper methods, which bring a trade-off between loading capacity and vibration isolation, or no suspension at all with only hard contact between wheels and ground. This article presents a tracked mobile robot with a unique passive suspension, which is constructed by using a bio-inspired animal-limb-like structure, to guarantee both loading capacity and vibration isolation performance. With the novel bio-inspired suspension, the loading capacity, riding comfort and obstacle negotiation capability of the robot in various rough ground environments can be significantly enhanced. However, 'soft suspension' may lead to 'slippery track' due to rough terrain or irregular obstacles. To solve this problem, an advanced autonomous navigation is realized. A novel double layer nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) architecture is adopted for optimizations of trajectory tracking. The global trajectory tracking is optimized strategically in the upper layer NMPC at a low frequency, while the local dynamics such as slippage during obstacle negotiation is timely captured in the lower layer NMPC at a high frequency. Experimental results clearly demonstrate that the superior passive suspension can efficiently absorb strong shock induced by obstacle crossing and hence guarantee smooth motion, and the double layer NMPC can effectively improve transient response and tracking accuracy ideally. This article would present a benchmark result to the design and control of mobile robots working on rough grounds.
KW - Autonomous navigation
KW - Model predictive control
KW - Passive bio-inspired suspension
KW - Tracked mobile robot
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083465347&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMECH.2020.2987004
DO - 10.1109/TMECH.2020.2987004
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85083465347
SN - 1083-4435
VL - 25
SP - 2633
EP - 2644
JO - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
JF - IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
IS - 6
M1 - 9064663
ER -