Semi-autonomous traversal on uneven terrain for a tracked vehicle using autonomous control of active flippers

Active flippers for tracked vehicles are very useful to improve traversability on uneven terrain. However it is widely known that control of flippers also increases the workload for operators, particularly where the vehicle and the operator are far apart. To reduce the work-load, we aim to realize a sensor-based autonomous controller of flippers to enable a "semi-autonomous operation" of tracked vehicles. The "semi-autonomous operation" means that the only requirement for an operator is to indicate the robot's direction. In this way, the robot is navigated autonomously through its sensors and actuators to surmount or avoid obstacles. In this research, two laser range sensors are used for terrain sensing, and gyro sensors are used for the measurement of the robot's attitude. Based on such sensor system, we propose a strategy of simple sensor-based motion of active flippers for tracked vehicles to enable a semi-autonomous operation. In this paper, we introduce a strategy of motion of active flippers, and the stability analysis of tracked vehicles with active flippers. Finally, we report several experimental results to verify the validity of our approach.