Dynamic Arc Fitting Path Follower for Skid-Steered Mobile Robots

Abstract

Many applications, such as surveillance, inspection or search and rescue operations, can be performed with autonomous robots. Our aim is a control of modular autonomous systems in rescue robotics. One of the basic problems with autonomous robotics is the execution part where the control commands (translation and rotational velocities) are produced for mobile bases. Therefore we have focused on this area because there is only a small amount of available path following software for skid-steered mobile robots. Our goal was to develop a velocity controller that could be used for multiple skid-steered mobile bases. We considered differential drive mobile bases such as tracked skid-steering mobile bases. Our approach is based on an arc fitting algorithm, which takes into account the robot constraints and kinematical model. It produces a continuous trajectory where fitting to the given path is adapted based on given parameters. Moreover, we have included orientation angle compensation while the mobile robot is moving and ground inclination compensation. Our rescue robot is described, together with the simulation setup and algorithm implementation. We compared our algorithm to the Hector-based software and curvature velocity approach. The results for the proposed algorithm are shown for the simulation results and the experiment.