Planning the Motions of an All-Terrain Vehicle by Using Geometric and Physical Models

| This paper addresses motion planning for a mobile robot moving on a hilly three dimensional terrain and subjected to strong physical interaction constraints. The main contribution of this paper is a planning method which takes into account the dynamics of the robot, the robot/terrain interactions , the kinematic constraints of the robot, and classical constraints. The basic idea of our method is to integrate geometric and physical models of the robot and of the terrain in a two-stage trajectory planning process. Consisting in combining a \discrete search strategy" and a \continuous motion generation method". It will be shown how each planning step operates and how they interact in order to generate a safe and executable motion for the all-terrain vehicle. Contribution of the paper | The contribution of this paper is a two-stage motion planning method for an autonomous vehicle moving on a given hill-like and hostile terrain. The purpose of this work is to propose a technique which combines geometric and physical models of the robot and the terrain in order to nd safe and executable motions for the vehicle. The basic idea consists in performing two complementary functions: the rst function, \Explore", determines a set of intermediate safe and stable conngurations of the robot using the geometric models of the robot and the terrain, while the second function, \Move", computes an executable motion using the dynamic model of the robot and appropriate physical models of the terrain and of the wheels/ground interactions. The method has been implemented and applied on a six-wheeled vehicle moving on a three dimensional terrain. The potential application of the method is the motion planning of autonomous robots moving in a physically constrained environment such as planetary rovers and oo-road vehicles. Abstract This paper addresses motion planning for a mobile robot moving on a hilly three dimensional terrain and subjected to strong physical interaction constraints. The main contribution of this paper is a planning method which takes into account the dynamics of the robot, the robot/terrain interactions, the kinematic constraints of the robot, and classical constraints. The basic idea of our method is to integrate geometric and physical models of the robot and of the terrain in a two-stage trajectory planning process. Consisting in combining a \discrete search strategy" and a \contin-uous motion generation method". It will be shown how each planning step operates and how they interact in order to generate a …