Tracked Mobile Robot Control: Hybrid Approach

Complexity

The kinematics of a tracked vehicle is very complex, since:

• infinite number of contact points between the track and the terrain
• infinite closed-link chains which make slippage unavoidable

以上原因导致建模困难。所以这篇文章提出了a simple orientation model for tracked vehicles which uses the effective wheel diameter.
提出这种模型的假设或者基础：This model is based on the observation that a tracked mobile resembles a regular differential drive robot with two driving wheels when only straight-line motion is considered.

Factors that affect the motion accuracy of a tracked mobile robot

Motion errors can be decomposed into two classes:

• Internal Errors (can be detected by the wheel encoders) source:
  • different drive loop parameters
  • different disturbances acting on each loop
• External Errors (can be detected only with absolute motion measurements) source:
  • external systematic errors : different wheel diameters and wheel misalignment
  • external nonsystematic errors : wheel slippage and floor roughness

How to describe error?

Motion errors can be decomposed into :

A点是目标点，机器人在B点

1. orientation errors $E_o$
   就是真实方向和目标方向之间的angular difference
2. contour errors $E_c$
   the distance between the actual position B and the desired trajectory in the direction perpendicular to the direction of travel
3. tracking errors $E_t$
   the distance between the actual position and the desired position in the direction of travel

稍微总结一下：
In mobile robot motion control, the orientation errors are the dominant errors since they cause unbounded growth of the contour errors. The tracking errors are usually of less concern.

Method

这篇文章使用了两种控制算法：

• a cross-coupling control algorithm to compensate for the internal errors
• an adaptive control algorithm to compensate for the external errors