Kinematics and interaction analysis for tracked mobile manipulators

This paper presents a systematic method to establish the kinematics model for a tracked mobile manipulator on firm grounds, with consideration of the interactive motions between the tracks and the terrain as well as those between the tracked vehicle and the onboard manipulator. Kinematics modeling for a tracked mobile manipulator is an intractable problem, because there are infinite number of contact points between the tracks and the terrain which makes slippage unavoidable. The track-terrain and vehicle-manipulator interactions make the problem even more complex and difficult to solve since the motion of the onboard manipulator and the centrifugal forces during moderate or high speed motion will give rise to transfer of the load distribution, which may affect the longitudinal and lateral tractive forces and the resistance. This work aims at developing a general kinematics modeling approach, which lays a solid foundation for automatic control of tracked mobile manipulators.