A New Contact Angle Detection Method for Dynamics Estimation of a UGV Subject to Slipping in Rough-Terrain

In this paper, a new single-output resistive sensor is proposed to enhance the dynamics estimation, slip elimination, stability extraction and surface scanning of a ground UGV (wheeled-robot) in 2D and 3D spaces. The new sensor is based on the total resistance of a circuit which contains a continuous resistive belt with high accuracy. The Lagrange method is implemented to derive the stick-slip dynamics in both 2D and 3D spaces. Furthermore, the kinematics is solved using the Newton-Raphson approach. The slipping characteristics of the robot with and without the new sensor are firstly shown in 2D space. To demonstrate the abilities of the sensor in the real applications, the dynamic simulation is further extended to 3D space. A real time torque optimization aided by the new sensor is applied to the dynamics of the robot to eliminate slip during locomotion. Moreover, a stability measure is introduced and the real time stability margins are extracted during missions. The sensor empowers the robot to scan the surface and consequently, extract the main properties of the surface. The simulation results obtained for different case studies prove the ability of the new sensor in performing the above mentioned tasks.