Driving Control of Planetary Rover Based on Slip Ratio Estimation

Abstract

Slip-sinkage is one of the main factors influencing the driving safety of planetary rover in soft terrain. In the environment of scarce features, based on the stereo visual sensors, the visual odometry algorithm is firstly developed to calculate the position changes of planetary rover with six degrees of freedom, which combine with the wheel speed sensor achieve the estimation of wheel slip ratios. Then, on the basis of mechanical analysis of soft terrain, choosing the slip ratio as the state variable, the coordinated driving control algorithm is designed. Simulation and experiment results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.