A watchdog for the overturn stability supervision of platforms

Overturn stability is an important safety factor for platforms such as swing cranes, wheeled or legged vehicles, and mobile robots. Increasing automation of these systems necessitates the automation of safety functions such as stability supervision. An intelligent watchdog which monitors static stability and selectively suppresses critical steering commands is presented. The sensors used to quantify overturn stability are discussed. Redundancy allows the detection and localization of system errors, such as failures of sensors, wires, and actuators, as well as external disturbance forces and changes of model parameters. The approaches are discussed for a SCARA robot standing on a small platform