Actively articulated suspension for a wheel-on-leg rover operating on a Martian analog surface

Reid, William J.; Pérez-Grau, Francisco J.; Göktoğan, Ali Haydar; Sukkarieh, Salah

doi:10.1109/icra.2016.7487777

Cited by 68 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…In the literature concerning wheeled-legged robots, hybrid walking-driving motions are scarce. The focus is mostly on statically-stable driving motions where the legs are used for active suspension alone [5]- [10]. These applications do not show any instance of wheel lift-offs, and hence sophisticated motion planning for the wheels is unnecessary and hence usually skipped.…”

Section: A Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Rolling in the Deep – Hybrid Locomotion for Wheeled-Legged Robots Using Online Trajectory Optimization

Bjelonic

Sankar

Bellicoso

et al. 2020

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Wheeled-legged robots have the potential for highly agile and versatile locomotion. The combination of legs and wheels might be a solution for any real-world application requiring rapid, and long-distance mobility skills on challenging terrain. In this paper, we present an online trajectory optimization framework for wheeled quadrupedal robots capable of executing hybrid walking-driving locomotion strategies. By breaking down the optimization problem into a wheel and base trajectory planning, locomotion planning for high dimensional wheeled-legged robots becomes more tractable, can be solved in real-time on-board in a model predictive control fashion, and becomes robust against unpredicted disturbances. The reference motions are tracked by a hierarchical whole-body controller that sends torque commands to the robot. Our approach is verified on a quadrupedal robot that is fully torquecontrolled, including the non-steerable wheels attached to its legs. The robot performs hybrid locomotion with different gait sequences on flat and rough terrain. In addition, we validated the robotic platform at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Subterranean Challenge, where the robot rapidly maps, navigates, and explores dynamic underground environments.

show abstract

Section: A Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The online TO of the base has a similar setup as the TO described in (5). Cost terms are added to maintain smooth motions, and to track the reference velocity.…”

Section: B Formulation Of Trajectory Optimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rolling in the Deep – Hybrid Locomotion for Wheeled-Legged Robots Using Online Trajectory Optimization

Bjelonic

Sankar

Bellicoso

et al. 2020

IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett.

100

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Wheeled legged platforms offer the ability to reconfigure platform characteristics such as footprint, ground clearance and body pose. These platforms include All-Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) [4] and [5], The Mars Analog Multi-Mode Traverse Hybrid (MAM-MOTH) [6] and [7], Scarab lunar drilling rover [8] and Wheeled Actively Articulated Vehicle (WAAV) [9] and [10]. Multiple versions of the kinematic for such reconfigurability exist including the work by Alamdari and Krovi [11,12] and Alamdari et al [13], Sreenivasan and Wilcox [14] as well as the generic models such as Kelly and Seegmiller [15].…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Modular Field Robots for Extraterrestrial Exploration

Cordie

Steindl

Dungavell

et al. 2020

Adv. Astronaut. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Modular design methodology enables rapid reconfigurability for functional changes, robustness to failures and space utilisation for transportation. In the case of planetary exploration robots, there is promise in modular robots that are able to reconfigure themselves for exploration of unknown terrains. This paper presents a design and controller architecture for modular field robots that can be rapidly assembled in a variety of functional configurations. A key challenge of building a functional robot out of modular units is the ability to seamlessly add, remove and replace individual units to enable functional improvements as well as adapt to terrain requirements. We present a representative modular wheel design and a distributed controller architecture able to create a range of bespoke multi-wheeled configurations capable of traversal on a variety of terrains during simulated failure scenarios. The self-contained wheeled unit has energy, computation communication, and actuation modules and does not require any modification or physical customization in the field during deployment enabling a seamless plug and play behaviour. The hierarchical control structure runs a body controller node that decomposes a whole body motion requested from a higher level planner to generate a sequence of actuation goals for each of the modules, while a local controller node running on each of the modules ensures that the desired actuation is adapted to the configuration, load and terrain characteristics.

show abstract

“…An area of interest outside of USAR platforms is the growing selection of wheeled legged platforms. Increased articulation and nonholonomic constraints reduce by attaching wheels to the end of articulated limbs, this concept is demonstrated by the four-wheeled Mars Analon Multi-Mode Traverse Hybird (MAMMOTH), an Actively Articulated Wheeled Mobile Robot (AAWMR; Reid, Perez-Grau, Goktogan, & Sukkarieh, 2016). MAMMOTH utilises four-wheeled legs to stabilise its sensor payload as it moves across uneven terrain.…”

Section: Inspiration Outside Of Usarmentioning

confidence: 99%

Modular field robot deployment for inspection of dilapidated buildings

Cordie

Bandyopadhyay

Roberts

et al. 2019

Journal of Field Robotics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Robotic inspection often relies on building custom platforms for each new deployment; this is a luxury that urban search and rescue (USAR) robots do not have when time is of critical importance. A significant factor for robots deployed in disaster areas is the varying size of voids and access ways in their path. These situations require platforms that can quickly reconfigure on location. With these challenges in mind, we present the NeWheel system: An in‐field reconfigurable robotic platform that allows mobility changes before, and during, deployment. The NeWheel platform also has the advantage of being small enough to be person‐deployable and to travel as checked luggage on a commercial flight. This field report presents the results and learnings from three field trips on Peel Island located off the coast of Brisbane, Australia. These field trips featured the deployment of the NeWheel system in multiple configurations to inspect and map inside historic dilapidated buildings. It demonstrates the potential of the NeWheel in buildings cluttered with debris and with unstable flooring whether they are historically important or in USAR contexts.

show abstract

Actively articulated suspension for a wheel-on-leg rover operating on a Martian analog surface

Cited by 68 publications

References 10 publications

Rolling in the Deep – Hybrid Locomotion for Wheeled-Legged Robots Using Online Trajectory Optimization

Rolling in the Deep – Hybrid Locomotion for Wheeled-Legged Robots Using Online Trajectory Optimization

Modular Field Robots for Extraterrestrial Exploration

Modular field robot deployment for inspection of dilapidated buildings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About