Arun Kumar Singh K. Madhava Krishna Vijay Eathakota
In this paper we propose a novel physics based motion planning and trajectory generation framework for vehicle operating on uneven terrains. The proposed framework provides for a fully 3D analysis of the dynamic constraints of the vehicle on uneven terrain and hence comes as a better approach than the existing motion planning framework which makes simplifying assumptions for the terrain conditions or the vehicle geometry or both. The entire framework consists of three major parts which are: 1. A framework for determination of the posture of a vehicle in 3D for a given terrain. 2. A framework for determination of maximum feasible velocities and acceleration based on contact and no-slip constraints. 3. Combining the above two framework to generate feasible trajectories for the vehicle. Trajectories are generated through a Dynamic Window paradigm extended to fully 3D terrains, wherein the next best node is selected through a new metric that maximizes the space of feasible velocities and accelerations and reduces the distance to be traversed to the goal