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October 2009 Calendar

CS Masters' Thesis Defense

Title: Systematic Kinematics Modeling of High Mobility Rovers over Rough Terrain
Speaker: Huy D. Ho
Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location: GMCS 555
Thesis advisor: Dr Mahmoud Tarokh

Abstract:
It is well-known that a systematic and universal approach exists for kinematics modeling of robot manipulators. However, such a methodology does not exist for articulated rovers. The goal of this thesis is to propose a systematic method, similar to those used for manipulator, for developing full kinematics models for motions over uneven terrain of general articulated, high mobility rovers. The method is based on the propagation of position and orientation velocities starting from the rover reference frame and going through various joints and linkages to the wheels. In this approach, an extended Denavit-Hartenberg (D-H) table is set up to specify parameters for forming a transformation matrix for each frame in the kinematics chain. Different kinematics, such as contact, navigation, and actuation kinematics are derived in either symbolic or numeric form. Contact kinematics expresses an equation of a wheel motion in term of rover body motion. Navigation kinematics, on the other hand, provides the body motion which is a composite effect of all wheel motions. Actuation kinematics is another form of kinematics in which actuation signals, e.g. steering rates, are determined. For this thesis, a Matlab simulation program has been developed to apply the method to two rovers, namely, JPL Sample Return Rover and Multi-Tasking Rover.
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