2P1-L03 Design of Flipper Control Law for Semi-Autonomous System of Crawler Robot based on Real Time 3D Terrain Measurement

Abstract

We aim at development of semi-autonomous control system for a crawler robot which has flippers at the front and the rear. We had proposed a sensor reflective method in 2D steps environment. In this method, an operator only specifies a moving direction to the robot. The robot automatically controls these flippers for getting over a bump. The proposed method worked well in 2D steps environment. However, these front flippers sometimes caught upward step which was located after downward steps when the robot descended these steps. In this paper, the authors will propose a method for flipper's collision avoidance using real-time 3D range camera. Moving trajectory of front flipper is estimated considering robot's velocity, flipper's angular velocity and flipper's position. The collision is detected by comparing the ground shape with the trajectory. The flipper's position is changed to new angle without the collision.