New method for slip and tire force estimation of wheeled mobile robot on inclined terrain

This paper introduces a new method, based on extended Kalman filter (EKF), to estimate wheel slip and tire forces for a four-wheel drive mobile robot on rigid and continuously varying inclined terrain. The longitudinal and lateral forces are both considered in the proposed method. An empirical tire-terrain model from Pacejka´s Magic Formula is used to represent the true model of the contact patch force. Simulation results show that the proposed technique can estimate the tire forces and the slip ratio effectively when robot is traveling on simulated inclined surface.