Pose estimation-based path planning for a tracked mobile robot traversing uneven terrains

A novel path-planning algorithm is proposed for a tracked mobile robot to traverse uneven terrains, which can efficiently search for stability sub-optimal paths. This algorithm consists of combining two RRT-like algorithms (the Transition-based RRT (T-RRT) and the Dynamic-Domain RRT (DD-RRT) algorithms) bidirectionally and of representing the robot-terrain interaction with the robot's quasi-static tip-over stability measure (assuming that the robot traverses uneven terrains at low speed for safety). The robot's stability is computed by first estimating the robot's pose, which in turn is interpreted as a contact problem, formulated as a linear complementarity problem (LCP), and solved using the Lemke's method (which guarantees a fast convergence). The present work compares the performance of the proposed algorithm to other RRT-like algorithms (in terms of planning time, rate of success in finding solutions and the associated cost values) over various uneven terrains and shows that the proposed algorithm can be advantageous over its counterparts in various aspects of the planning performance. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.