Energy-optimal trajectories for skid-steer rovers

This paper presents the energy-optimal trajectories for skid-steer rovers on hard ground, without obstacles. We obtain 29 trajectory structures that are sufficient to describe minimum-energy motion, which are enumerated and described geometrically; 28 of these structures are composed of sequences of circular arcs and straight lines; there is also a special structure called whirls consisting of different circular arcs. Our analysis identifies that the turns in the trajectory structures (aside from whirls) are all circular arcs of a particular turning radius, R′, the turning radius at which the inner wheels of a skid-steer rover are not commanded to turn. This work demonstrates its paramount importance in energy-optimal path planning. There has been a lack of analytical energy-optimal trajectory generation for skid-steer rovers, and we address this problem by a novel approach. The equivalency theorem presented in this work shows that all minimum-energy solutions follow the same path irrespective of velocity constraints that may or may not be imposed. This non-intuitive result stems from the fact that with this model of the system the total energy is fully parameterized by the geometry of the path alone. With this equivalency in mind, one can choose velocity constraints to enforce constant power consumption, thus transforming the energy-optimal problem into an equivalent time-optimal problem. Pontryagin’s Minimum Principle can then be used to solve the problem. Accordingly, the extremal paths are obtained and enumerated to find the minimum-energy path. Furthermore, our experimental results by using Husky UGV provide the experimental support for the equivalency theorem.