Stabilization of a mobile robot climbing stairs

Martens, Judith; Newman, Wyatt S.

doi:10.1109/robot.1994.351135

Cited by 59 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 2 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…3 The robot is typically positioned 10 to 15 m away from the descending-stair portion of the environment. In order to compensate for commonly occurring changes in illumination, we implemented a method for adaptively tuning the threshold value used for converting the texture-energy image to the binary one (see Sect.…”

Section: B Experimental Setup and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Existing approaches for autonomous robotic stair navigation provide only partial solutions. For instance, some only address the aspect of stair detection [2], while others only address control [3]. The vast majority of the available methods are limited to ascending stairs in a carefully controlled environment, e.g., with constant lighting, color-coded stairs [4], or known stair dimensions [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Descending-stair detection, approach, and traversal with an autonomous tracked vehicle

Hesch

Mariottini

Roumeliotis

2010

2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-This paper presents a strategy for descending-stair detection, approach, and traversal using inertial sensing and a monocular camera mounted on an autonomous tracked vehicle. At the core of our algorithm are vision modules that exploit texture energy, optical flow, and scene geometry (lines) in order to robustly detect descending stairwells during both far-and near-approaches. As the robot navigates down the stairs, it estimates its three-degrees-of-freedom (d.o.f.) attitude by fusing rotational velocity measurements from an on-board tri-axial gyroscope with line observations of the stair edges detected by its camera. We employ a centering controller, derived based on a linearized dynamical model of our system, in order to steer the robot along safe trajectories. A real-time implementation of the described algorithm was developed for an iRobot Packbot, and results from real-world experiments are presented.

show abstract

Section: B Experimental Setup and Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Descending-stair detection, approach, and traversal with an autonomous tracked vehicle

Hesch

Mariottini

Roumeliotis

2010

2010 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, they did not sufficiently validate its performance. Liu et al proposed an online prediction system for monitoring the physical stability of a tracked vehicle [10], and Martens et al proposed a practical control law to improve stability [11]. However, no previous study has verified a physical model to predict the stability of a tracked vehicle on stairs.…”

Section: )) (Ii)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of a tracked vehicle’s ability to traverse stairs

Endo

Nagatani

2016

Robomech J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In some surveillance missions in the aftermath of disasters, the use of a teleoperated tracked vehicle contributes to the safety of rescue crews. However, because of its insufficient traversal capability, the vehicle can become trapped upon encountering rough terrain. This may lead to mission failure and, in the worst case, loss of the vehicle. To improve the success rate of such missions, it is very important to assess the traversability of a tracked vehicle on rough terrains based on objective indicators. From this viewpoint, we first derived physical conditions that must be satisfied in the case of traversal on stairs, based on a simple mechanical model of a tracked vehicle. We then proposed a traversability assessment method for tracked vehicles on stairs. In other words, we established a method to evaluate whether or not a tracked vehicle can traverse the target stairs. To validate the method, we conducted experiments with an actual tracked vehicle on our simulated stairs, and we observed some divergences between our calculation and the experimental result. Therefore, we analyzed possible factors causing these divergences, estimated the influence of the factors quantitatively by conducting additional experiments, and identified the reasons for the deviation. In this paper, we report the above-described assessment method, the experiments, and the analyses.

show abstract

“…In [1], Martens and Newman note the difficulties involved in teleoperated stair climbing of tracked robots. This task is very demanding on the operator, due to limited sensor feedback and track slippage.…”

Section: Tracked Robotsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Autonomous Stair Climbing for Tracked Vehicles

Mourikis

Trawny

Roumeliotis

et al. 2007

The International Journal of Robotics Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract-In this paper, we present an algorithm for autonomous stair climbing with a tracked vehicle. The proposed method achieves robust performance under real-world conditions, without assuming prior knowledge of the stair geometry, the dynamics of the vehicle's interaction with the stair surface, or lighting conditions. Our approach relies on fast and accurate estimation of the robot's heading and its position relative to the stair boundaries. An extended Kalman filter is used for quaternion-based attitude estimation, fusing rotational velocity measurements from a 3-axial gyroscope, and measurements of the stair edges acquired with an onboard camera. A twotiered controller, comprised of a centering-and a headingcontrol module, utilizes the estimates to guide the robot fast, safely, and accurately upstairs. Both the theoretical analysis and implementation of the algorithm are presented in detail, and extensive experimental results demonstrating the algorithm's performance are described.

show abstract

Stabilization of a mobile robot climbing stairs

Cited by 59 publications

References 2 publications

Descending-stair detection, approach, and traversal with an autonomous tracked vehicle

Descending-stair detection, approach, and traversal with an autonomous tracked vehicle

Assessment of a tracked vehicle’s ability to traverse stairs

Autonomous Stair Climbing for Tracked Vehicles

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About