Experimental validation of tip over stability of a tracked mobile manipulator

Mobile manipulators are highly susceptible to tip over due to the motion of the manipulator or the gradient of the slope being traversed by the robot´s mobile base. This paper presents the experimental validation of the tip over stability analysis of a tracked mobile manipulator. The Force Angle stability measure is used to compute the stability index of the platform. A refined model of a tracked mobile manipulator is used to determine the ground contact points which form an input into the stability formulation. A Vicon motion capture system is used to determine the actual time of tip over of the robot. It is found that the tip over model is able to determine the tip over occurrence ahead of the actual tip over time in the majority of the test cases.