Fundamental Analysis on Maneuverability Ellipsoid for Representing Mobility Performance of Wheeled Robots
Ryo Ueda, Genya Ishigami · Journal of the Robotics Society of Japan · 2024
Mobility analysis of wheeled mobile robots is essential for the design, development, and control of the robot. While many types of wheeled mobile robots have been developed, having different numbers/configurations of wheels, including driving and steering axles, there are few studies that mathematically analyze and correlate the wheel configuration with robotic mobility. In this paper, we propose a maneuverability ellipsoid, an extension of the manipulability ellipsoid for robotic arms, to quantitatively represent the translational and rotational mobility of the wheeled robot. We applied this analytical approach to three different vehicle models and confirmed that the maneuverability ellipsoid systematically represents the mobility performance depending on the wheel configurations and vehicle dimensions.