Tracked vehicles can steer using internal mass on slippery surfaces
Inertial Steering and Motion Prediction of Tracked Vehicles on Low-Adherence Surfaces
Robotics
Summary
Tracked vehicles usually assume they don't slip when they move, but this isn't true on slippery surfaces like ice. The authors show that instead of trying to avoid slipping, vehicles can use the movement of internal parts or trailers to help steer. They created a mathematical model that predicts how a tracked vehicle with a trailer moves on ice better than older models. They also demonstrated that moving a mass inside a vehicle without traditional steering can make it turn on ice, using their model to predict this behavior.
What this means in practice
- •For off-road vehicle engineers: Improve steering control of tracked vehicles operating on slippery and low-friction terrains by incorporating inertial effects into vehicle models.
- •For robotics developers: Design tracked robotic platforms that steer without conventional steering mechanisms by controlling internal moving masses.
Authors
Mathis Turgeon-Roy, Mohamed Ounally, Veronica Vannini, Olivier Roy, François Pomerleau
Abstract
Tracked vehicles are widely used in off-road applications, but their conventional motion models often rely on no-slip assumptions that become inaccurate on low-adherence surfaces. Rather than treating inertial effects arising from slip as a disturbance to be minimized, this work investigates how inertial effects arising from a moving mass can be deliberately exploited for steering on low-friction surfaces. A dynamic model for an articulated tracked vehicle with a passive trailer is developed, allowing inertial effects from trailer motion to be captured. The approach is experimentally evaluated on ice, where our dynamic model outperforms the kinematic baseline. We also propose a mixed dynamic-kinematic model to adapt predictions to both surface and situation by exploiting predictions from both methods. Finally, we demonstrate inertial steering on a mono-track vehicle without a conventional steering mechanism, showing that controlled movements of an internal mass can generate turning motion on ice. The resulting behavior can be predicted using the proposed dynamic model by representing the internal mass as a frictionless trailer, revealing the analogous dynamics between the two configurations. These results demonstrate the feasibility of inertial steering as an alternative steering mechanism for tracked vehicles operating in low-adherence environments.