A novel model-based method for odometry calculation of all-terrain mobile robots

A novel model-based method for odometry calculation of all-terrain mobile robots is proposed in this paper. Using an all-terrain mobile robot with passively compliant mechanism as an instance, this paper grasps the wheel slip as a key factor affecting the accuracy of odometry calculation by investigating the physical contact relationship between the wheel and the terrain. Firstly, the wheel slip model involving rolling slip, side slip and turning slip is investigated. Then, the whole kinematics model of the robot is built considering the above wheel slips. Finally, the odometry information is achieved based on solving the kinematics model of the robot and the dead-reckon operation. Both theoretical analyses and experimental results testify the correctness and validity of this method. Moreover, the odometry calculation method proposed in this paper can be easily performed based on on-board sensors without taking extra hardware cost.