Experimental analysis of models for trajectory generation on tracked vehicles

Abstract

We begin to bridge the gap between high-level motion planning and execution by adopting models to abstract the complicated skid-steer vehicle dynamics and evaluating their suitability as motion predictors for a feed-forward control framework. We consider three kinematic motion models and a drivetrain model in experiments on two surface types with a small tracked vehicle. We perform statistical analysis of the predictive accuracy of these models when used to create optimal open-loop plans for a set of canonical maneuvers and discuss the applicability of these models for a closed-loop control framework.