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ㆍProduct: Urban Reconnaissance Tracked Robotic Vehicle

ㆍAnalysis Goal: Evaluation of stair climbing performance of the robot

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A reconnaissance robot must be able to carry out missions under a variety of driving conditions, and missions in urban environments may have extreme mobility challenges such as climbing stairs. One concept is a robot with sub-track assemblies in addition to the main track assemblies. While going up the stairs the sub-track assemblies lay flat to provide a longer contact length. On landings, the sub-track assemblies are rotated up to shorten the required clearance for the robot and allow easy pivoting.

One military research group was evaluating the suitability of various types of robotic vehicles for an urban mission and wanted to be able to simulate the vehicle behavior. Modeling and simulating track assemblies with many bodies is not an easy task, but with the pre-defined track entities and assembly process automation in RecurDyn’s special track toolkit, it was possible to build a virtual model and validate the stair climbing operation efficiently.

Process

① Fast, simple modeling of the accurate, complex track model

② Specify contact parameters between track links and stairs.

③ Parts requiring user-defined motion controlled with simple, intuitive functions

④ Calculate the torques required for driving and climbing stairs used to determine appropriate motor capacity.

Key Technologies for Analysis

• Specialized track user interface for fast modeling of track assemblies composed of numerous track links

• Fast contact algorithm that automatically detects contact between track links and the stairs

• Easy-to-use Function Expressions to represent the complex motion mathematically

Toolkits

• RecurDyn/Professional

• RecurDyn/TrackHM

Customer Challenges

• Fast validation of the new concept robot at an early stage to determine if the mission is achievable

• Difficulty in modeling track assemblies with many track link bodies

• Complex contact conditions between the stairs and the track link bodies

• Need to simulate the complex motions of turning in place as well as climbing

• Difficulty in estimating the appropriate motor capacity to drive the robot

Solutions

• Simulation of virtual model with high-fidelity track assemblies in various driving scenarios

• Fast and automatic contact detection algorithm specialized for track assemblies

• Quantitative estimation of the torque for the driving the robot

Outcomes

• Validation of the new design using a virtual model at an early stage

• Determination of motor capacity required for driving and climbing stairs and the energy consumption for a mission

• Definition of operational limits of the robot

• Simulation results provided guidance for potential design improvements

Other Applications

◀ Analysis of a robot that can climb stairs

ㆍDesign of a controller in order to prevent a robot from falling down

ㆍDetermination of motor capacity required to operate a robot

◀ Short demo about how to use RecurDyn/TrackLM to create a tracked vehicle model easily

ㆍRecurDyn/TrackLM (Track Low Mobility) gives the ability to simulate construction-style tracked vehicles.

ㆍThe toolkit supports the easy creation of sprockets, rollers, idlers and links.

ㆍGraphical design of sprocket teeth profile and grouser of the tracking link is supported.