Coordinated motion control and event-based obstacle-crossing for four wheel-leg independent motor-driven robotic system

This work investigates the coordinated motion control and obstacle-crossing problem for a four wheel-leg independent motor-driven robotic system via a model predictive control (MPC) approach based on an event triggering mechanism. The modeling of a wheel-leg robotic control system with a dynamic supporting polygon is organized. The system dynamic model is 3 degrees of freedom ignoring the pitch, roll, and vertical motions. The single wheel dynamic is analyzed considering the characteristics of the motor-driven and the Burckhardt nonlinear tire model. As a result, an over-actuated predictive model is proposed with the motor torques as inputs and the system states as outputs. As the supporting polygon is only adjusted at certain conditions, an event-based triggering mechanism is designed to save hardware resources and energy. The MPC controller is evaluated on a virtual prototype as well as a physical prototype. The simulation results guide the parameter tuning for the controller implementation in the physical prototype. The experimental results on these two prototypes verify the efficiency of the proposed approach.