Development and control of a buggy robot for operations on unstructured terrain

The demand for mobile robots for hazardous field tasks, such as rescue operations in disaster scenes or landmine detection and removal has been increasing in recent years. Since electrical infrastructure is seldom available in such situations, robots that rely on chemical batteries or/and tethered connections to external electric generators suffer severe limitations in operation time and mobility. A different approach is being sought in this research, which involves the use of a combustion engine for on-board electric generation. For practical purposes, the authors used a commercial 4-wheel buggy as the base platform. Some mechanical adaptations in the steering, throttle, gearshift and brake mechanisms were performed, and the developed mobile platform (Gryphon-I) can be computer controlled. This paper introduces new strategies for the control of Gryphon-I over uneven terrain, and the effectiveness of the proposed methods is evaluated experimentally.