Shared Control System to Safeguard Mobility of Wheeled, Actively Articulated Truck-Trailer Vehicles on Structured and Rough Terrain

For transportation tasks predominantly wheeled vehicles are used. This is due to a wheel's easy construction, its simple actuation and control implementation as well as the fact that no energy is wasted to overcome gravitational effects. But wheeled vehicles are best suited for a use on prepared terrain and surfaces. Their mobility on unstructured and rough terrain is significantly limited. These limits can be overcome by the integration of active articulations which enable a vehicle system's reconfiguration and accommodation to various environmental conditions. The paper at hand describes a wheeled, actively articulated transportation system in form of a mobile robot and experimental small-scale model, respectively. The system is equipped with a shared control system to safeguard its efficient mobility with respect to performance indices maneuverability, terrainability and trafficability, both, on structured and rough terrain. The developed shared control system is introduced and first experimental results are presented.