Abstract
Recent study revealed that slope traversability of a wheeled mobile robot in rough terrain can be improved by a wheel camber angle. However, a classical wheel-soil contact model may not accurately addresses an interaction of the wheel camber angle on sloped terrain. In addition, most of slope traversal controls in the past have exploited the wheel camber angle for straight-line traversal. Hence, this paper first analyzes the effect of camber angle for slope traversal. The experimental analysis uses a 3 m-long single wheel test bed in which the in-wheel camera is mounted with a certain camber angle. This analysis reveals that the wheel camber angle effects on the wheel sinkage and soil deformation. Based on the results, a camber angle control method is elaborated: a machine learning-based regression model is elaborated that provides an appropriate wheel camber angle for arbitral slope traversal motions.
