All Terrain Exploration with the Cliff-bot System

Author

Paulsen, Gale L. ; Farritor, Shane ; Huntsberger, Terry L. ; Aghazarian, Hrand

Author_Institution

University of Nebraska at Lincoln Department of Mechanical Engineering N104 WSEC (0656), Lincoln, NE 68588 USA; gpaulsen@unlserve.unl.edu

fYear

2005

fDate

18-22 April 2005

Firstpage

721

Lastpage

726

Abstract

The Cliff-bot system consists of three individual planetary rovers that work as a team to explore the surface of a cliff. Two of the rovers, designated “Anchor-bots”, assist the motion of a third rappelling “Cliff-bot” down and along a cliff face using tethers. A decentralized control technique is used to control the motion of the three rovers. The objective of this study is to develop several control algorithms that will create a robust and reliable Cliff-bot system. Control is accomplished by combining and prioritizing several different control algorithms into a hybrid deliberative-reactive control structure. Many different algorithms have been successfully developed and tested to provide the Cliff-bot system with stable and robust navigation of terrain slopes of at least 70 degrees.

Keywords

All Terrain Exploration; Cooperative Control; Mobile Robotics; Planetary Exploration; Distributed control; Hardware; Laboratories; Mechanical engineering; Mobile robots; Motion control; Navigation; Propulsion; Robot kinematics; Winches; All Terrain Exploration; Cooperative Control; Mobile Robotics; Planetary Exploration;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Robotics and Automation, 2005. ICRA 2005. Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE International Conference on

Print_ISBN

0-7803-8914-X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ROBOT.2005.1570203

Filename

1570203