RI | Publications | Terrain-Adaptive Generation of Optimal Continuous Trajectories for Mobile Robots

Text only version of this site

Terrain-Adaptive Generation of Optimal Continuous Trajectories for Mobile Robots
T. Howard and A. Kelly
Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS '05), September, 2005.

Jump to: Download | Abstract | Notes | Text Reference | BibTeX Reference

Download [Help]

Adobe portable document format (pdf) [379 KB]

Copyright notice: This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.

Abstract

The problem of generating continuous trajectories for motion over general 3D terrain is important. The more naïve and common approach of compensating, in the execution phase, via feedback control, for an incorrect flat terrain assumption, is not always viable. The flat terrain assumption is also almost never necessary since the terrain shape must already be known for autonomous vehicles to operate competently in 3D terrain. We propose a fairly general constrained optimization approach to trajectory generation over arbitrary terrain, for arbitrary vehicles, which optimizes arbitrary utility/cost functionals while satisfying arbitrary constraints. The approach achieves its generality, in part, by numerically linearizing and inverting forward kinematic and dynamic models of propulsion, suspension, and motion prediction. It achieves efficiency by adopting a parametric optimal control approach from earlier related work. An implementation of this algorithm is exhibited using a model based on the Rocky 7 Mars rover platform. Several utility functions minimizing time and/or slope dwell are illustrated, while demonstrating convergence in a variety of terrain shapes.

Notes

Associated center: NREC
Associated project: Very Rough Terrain Nonholonomic Trajectory Generation and Motion Planning for Rovers

Number of pages: 8

Text Reference

T. Howard and A. Kelly, "Terrain-Adaptive Generation of Optimal Continuous Trajectories for Mobile Robots," Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS '05), September, 2005.

BibTeX Reference

@inproceedings{Howard_2005_5373,
   author = "Thomas Howard and Alonzo Kelly",
   title = "Terrain-Adaptive Generation of Optimal Continuous Trajectories for Mobile Robots",
   booktitle = "Proceedings of the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Automation in Space (i-SAIRAS '05)",
   month = "September",
   year = "2005"
}