CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING

April10,2012 1
DOI:10.3901/CJME.2012.05.***,availableonlineatwww.springerlink.comwww.cjmenet.comwww.cjmenet.com.cn
Dynamicsand WheelsSlipRatioofaWheelleggedRobotinWheeledMotion
ConsideringtheChangeofHeight
DINGXilun,LIKejia
*
,and XUKun
SchoolofMechanicalEngineeringandAutomation, Beihang University, Beijing100191,China
Received June 30,2011revised April 5,2012 accepted April6,2012
Abstract:Theexistingresearchondynamicsandslipratioofwheeledmobilerobot(WMR)arederivedwithoutconsideringtheeffect
ofheight,andtheexistingmodelscannotbeusedtoanalyzethedynamicsperformanceoftherobotwithvariableheightwhilemoving
suchasNOROS.Theexistingmethodofdynamicsmodelingisimprovedbyaddingtheconstraintequationbetweenperpendicular
displacementofbodyandhorizontaldisplacementofwheelintotheconstraintconditions.ThedynamicmodelofNOROS inwheel
motion is built bythe Lagrange method under nonholonomic constraints. The inverse dynamics is calculated in three different paths
basedonthismodel,andtheresultsdemonstratethat torquesofhippitchingjointsareinverselyproportionaltotheheightofrobot.The
relativeerrorof calculated torquesislessthan2%compared withthat ofADAMSsimulation, bywhichthevalidityofdynamicmodelis
verified.Moreover,therelativehorizontalmotionbetweenfore/hindwheelsandbodyisproducedwhentheheightischanged,andthus
the accurate slip ratio can not be obtained by the traditional equation. The improved slip ratio equations with the parameter of the
verticalvelocityofbodyareintroducedforforewheelsandhindwheelsrespectively.Numericalsimulationsofslipratiosare conducted
torevealtheeffectofvariedheightonslipratiosofdifferentwheels.Theresultshowsthattheslipratiosoffore/hindwheelsbecome
larger/smallerrespectivelyastheheightincreases,andastheheightisreduced,thereverseapplies.Theproposedresearchofdynamic
modelandslipratiobasedontherobotheightprovidestheeffectivemethodtoanalyzethedynamicsofWMRswithvaryingheight.
Keywords:wheelleggedrobot,dynamics,slipratio,changeofheight,nonholonomicconstraints
1 Introduction
*
Themostimportanttaskofmobilerobotsistoarriveat
the target location. Wheeled mobile robots(WMR) with
simple structure can move quickly on the flat and hard
ground,however,theycannotpassthroughtheunevenor
softterrain.Leggedrobotshavetheabilitytowalkonthe
natural ground in most cases, but their mechanisms and
control system are more complex than WMR. Moreover
the speed of legged robot is lower than that of WMR.
Therefore wheellegged robots taking the advantages of
both wheeled robots and legged robots are the better
choiceforlocomotiontaskinnaturalenvironment.
Recently, different wheellegged robots have been
developed
[18]
. GUCCIONE, et al
[2]
, presented the
Wheeleg Robot which has two front cylindrical legs and
two independent rear wheels. Although the motion
capability was improved, this robot had the problems in
some other aspects such as lowspeed, poor stability and
traction problems. MOOSAVIAN, et al
[5]
, described a
* Correspondingauthor. Tel.:01082339055,Email:likejia5@gmail.com
This project is supported by National Outstanding Youth Science
Foundation(Grant No. 51125020), National Hitech Research and
DevelopmentProgramofChina(863Program,GrantNo.2006AA04Z207),
and ProgramforNewCenturyExcellentTalentsinUniversity,China
EditorialOfficeofChineseJournalofMechanicalEngineering
similar wheellegged robot with two manipulator arms.
ENDO, et al
[6]
, designed the RollerWalker robot whose
wheelsarepassivecanwalklikequadrupedrobotbutalso
skate on the flat ground. WILCOX, et al
[78]
, developed
the ATHLETE robot which has six legs with wheels as
feet.Therearealsosomedisadvantagesofthewheelfeet.
Forexample,thesmallcontactareaofawheelmaymake
robot slip or even turn over on the rough terrain.
Redundant energy will be consumed by locking the
wheelswhile the robotismoving inleggedmotion.Inour
previous work, NOROS robot which is a symmetric
hexapodwheelleggedrobotwithahemisphericbodywas
firstproposedin2006
[9]
andtheresultofgaitanalysiswas
presented
[10]
.WehavedevelopedthisrobottoNOROS
byseparatingthewheelsfromfeetandoptimizingtheleg
structure. This wheellegged robot can move by foot or
wheelrespectively throughchangingitsconfiguration.
Mobilerobotsthatarecapableofchangingheight,such
as NOROS robot, are more powerful because the
vertical movement guarantees its safetyand ability when
conducting the exploration tasks. The robot can avoid
obstaclesbyincreasingorreducingheight,andcanadjust
its posture to operate the legs as arms. Moreover the
varied height is helpful to thetasks of cameras, antennas
andotherinstalledinstruments.InthisarticleNOROS
robot in wheeled motion is introduced for analyzing the
DINGXilun,etal: Dynamicsand Wheels Slip RatioofaWheelleggedRobotinWheeledMotion Consideringthe Changeof Height 2
impactofrobotheightonthedynamicsandwheelsslip.
Many researches are focusing on the dynamics of
WMR in planar motion
[1119]
but few of them have
considered the factor of the height and its impact to the
dynamicsandwheelslip.Ageneraldynamicalmodelwas
derived for wheeled mobile robots with nonholonomic
constraintsby D'ANDREANOVEL,etal
[12]
.CAMPION,
et al, described five classes of wheel robot structures
pointingoutthemobilityrestrictioninherenttoeachclass
and derived the dynamic configuration model using
Lagrange formalism in Ref. [13]. The internal dynamics
of the mobile robot under the lookahead control was
characterized by YUN, et al
[[14]
. YOSHIDA, et al
[17]
,
analyzed the slip ofwheel on soft ground.Theslipbased
traction model was derived and verified by experiments
on Rover Test Bed. WARD, et al
[18]
, proposed a
modelbased approach for estimating longitudinal slip of
wheel and detecting immobilized conditions of
autonomous mobile robots operating on outdoor terrain.
TIAN,etal
[19]
,establishedthedynamicmodelwithlateral
andlongitudinalslipofwheel.
WMRsmayslipinwheeledmotionwhenitaccelerates
or brakes suddenly on smooth flat ground. Slip ratio as
the measurementofwheelsslipisanindispensablefactor
for the traction control system which is designed to
preventthewheeledrobotfromskidding.Theslippageof
wheel has been analyzed in detail in Ref. [20]. The best
slipratioisbetween0.1and0.2.Onceslipratiobecomes
largerthantheboundaryvalueof0.2,thetraction control
system will decrease the slip ratio value by reducing the
rotational velocity of wheel. However, the traditional
formula of slip ratio cannot be applied directly to the
robot if the height is changing, because it is affected by
the relative velocity between the body and the wheel.
Influenced by the change of height, the slip ratio of
NOROS should be treated in a special way and the
equationshouldberebuiltaswell.
Thispaperofthetestisorganizedasfollows.Insection
2 the wheellegged robot NOROS and its
characteristics inwheeledmotionare described.Insection
3 the dynamics of NOROS in wheeled motion with
variables of height is presented. With alterable height
takenintoaccount,theslipratiosof forewheelsandhind
wheels are analyzed in section 4. Finally, the simulation
results are presented in section 5 and the conclusion in
section6.
2 NOROS RobotandItsWheeledMotion
NOROS robot isa symmetrichexapodrobot which
mainlyconsists of the body, leg stuctureand liftinghead.
The hemispheric body with 600mm diameter has three
partsinside.Thebottompartisequippedwithmotorsthat
enable the hip to rotate around the axis which is
perpendiculartotheground.Themiddlepartcontainsthe
hardwares of control system such as CPU board, motion
drive,controlcardsandvideocapturecard,etc.Binocular
camera that can be stretched out of the shell for
environmentaldetectionisplacedatthetop.Basedonthe
researchofbionics,thelegstructurewasdesignedlikean
insect that consists of hip, thigh, knee, calf, foot and
wheel.Therearethreejointsineachleg:hipyawingjoint,
hip pitching joint and knee joint. All of those joints are
driven by DC motors through the bevel gear. The angle
between theadjacenthipsis 60, andtherotation range
of the hip joints is limited between 90. The wheels
areplacedat theknees separately. Threewheels(wheel 1,
3, 5) ofNOROS aredriven by motors, andthe others
are passive wheels. The robot can change the motion
typesbetween theleggedmotionandthewheeledmotion
through the configuration transformation. Fig. 1(a) and
Fig. 1(b) show the status of legged motion and wheeled
motionof NOROS respectively.
(a) Inleggedmotion (b)Inwheeledmotion
Fig.1. NOROS RobotDevelopedatBUAA
Whentherobotmovesstraightlyinthe wheeledmotion,
every leg parallels to the moving direction and the
rotation speed of every wheel are the same. When the
robot turns, three forelegs rotate b around the axis of Z
i
(i=1, 2, 6) in respective Cartesian coordinates P
i
X
i
Y
i
Z
i
whenthe hindlegsstillmaintaintheirposturesunchanged,
see Fig. 2.Therotation angle b is small (less than 30)
inthiscase becausetherotationrangeofthehipislimited.
When the robot has to turn sharply, it would stop and
change its direction through a series of actions such as
legs lifting, rotating and putting down. Fig. 3 shows the
situation of the two different directions. Since there are
sixdirections thatcanbechosen,therobotisabletomove
to anywhereontheplaneground.
The robot height can be changed by the hip pitching
motor when it is moving as shown in Fig. 4. In order to
avoidobstaclesoradjustpostureforexplorationtasks,the
robotcanchangetheheightsbetween randL+r,randL
are the radius of wheel and the length of thigh
respectively. The distance x D of fore wheel is equal to
x' D of the hind wheel but the direction is opposite.
When the height of the robot increases, the relative
motion between the fore (or hind) wheel and the body
generates velocity in the negative (or positive) direction
of xaxis. On the contrary, the moving direction
exchangeswhentheheightdecreases.
CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING
3
2
1
6
5
4
3
1c
1'
2'
6'
3
b

b
5
1
3
3
5 5c
3
5
1
c
c
1
1
Fig.2. Turning inwheeledmotion
2
1
6
5
4
3
Direction1
60
60
60
120
120
60
1'
2' 3'
4'
5'
6'
Fig.3. Changeof the moving directionofrobot
x D x ' D
h D
Fig.4. Changeofrobotheight
3 Dynamics of NOROS in Wheeled
Motion
The dynamics ofNOROS robot in wheeled motion
onthe flatgroundis established inthis subsection.In the
wheeledmotion,thesupportingwheelsplayanimportant
roletoensurethelocomotionstability,andthesupporting
wheels produce significant effect on the dynamics of
wheeled motion on rough terrain. However, the effect of
thesupportingwheelsonthedynamicsislittleiftherobot
isontheflatground. Sothe robotcanbe regarded asthree
wheels robot according to the number of active wheels.
Itsdifferentwiththe planarmotionofWMR
[12]
,thebody
of the robot can lift in the direction of zaxis by hip
pitching motor,whichmeans the robot hasfourdegreesof
mobility(three translation degrees and one rotation
degree).Assumethatthe robotmovesontheplaneground,
its center of gravity is at the center of body O
b
and the
wheelsarenondeformable.Setthe body alwaysparallelto
the ground,i.e.,theangle between eachleg andthebody
equals to each other d=d
i
, (i=1,2,,6) assume the mass
of wheel is neglected compared with that of its leg, and
the mass center ofeach leglocates at themidpoint P
ic
of
thigh.
A reference frameX
b
Y
b
Z
b
is establishedat O
b,
thus the
positionofrobotcanbespecifiedbythefollowingvector:
T
( ) x y z q = x
where, x, y, z are the coordinates of O
b
and q is the
orientation of reference frame in the inertial coordinate
OXYZ.
The positions of wheel 1,3,5 can be described by 4
variables a, b,
b i
O P , dintheplaneof OXYasshowninFig.
2.
b i
O P ,thatisequalto R
b
theradiusofrobotbody,isthe
length fromO
b
toP
i
,drestricted by dis the distance from
P
i
to the center of thigh in OXY plane. The geometric
characteristicsofthethreewheelsarelisted inTable 1.
Table1. Geometriccharacteristicsofwheels
Wheel
No.
Fixed
angle
ai/()
Rotational
angle
bi/()
Lengthfrom
Obto Pi
b i
O P /mm
Distancefrom Pi to
Pic in OXY plane
d/mm
1 0 b Rb Lcosd/2
3 2p/3 p/3 Rb Lcosd/2
5 4p/3 -p/3 Rb Lcosd/2
The wheeled motion of the robot can be completely
describedby thefollowing9generalizedcoordinates:
1 3 5
( ) x y z q b d f f f = q . (1)
3.1 Analysisonconstraint anddegreesoffreedom
The wheels are subjected to three constraint conditions:
non sideslip, purerollingandrelative speed to the body in
vertical axis. Non sideslip means the velocity component
perpendicular to the wheel plane is zero, thus the first
groupof constraintequations is asfollows:
1
1
( ) cos 0, 1,
( ) 0, 3, 5,
L i
i
q b d
q
+ = =


= =

D R
D R
& &
&
x
x
(2)
where
1 b
( sin( ) cos( ) cos cos 0)
i i i i i
L R a b a b d b = - + + + D ,
R(q ) is a homogeneousrigidtransformationmatrix:
cos sin 0 0
sin cos 0 0
( )
0 0 1 0
0 0 0 1
q q
q q
q


-

=



R .
The pure rolling conditions are deduced from Eq. (3).
DINGXilun,etal: Dynamicsand Wheels Slip RatioofaWheelleggedRobotinWheeledMotion Consideringthe Changeof Height 4
The velocity component in the plane of wheel, which is
determined by the rotational speed of wheel and the
velocity of d, is equal to the speed of robot. The second
groupof constraintequations is asfollows:
2
2
( ) sin 0, 1,
( ) sin 0, 3, 5,
i
i
L r i
L r i
q d d f
q d d f
+ + = =


- + = =

D R
D R
& & &
& & &
x
x
(3)
where
2 b
( cos( ) sin( ) cos 0)
i i i i i
R a b a b b = - + - + - D .
Angle d
i
of all legs are equal, thus the vertical speeds of
all wheels are the same, the relative speed of body to
wheelsinverticalaxisisdeterminedjustby d andlengthof
the leg, thus the third group of constraint equation is as
follows:
(0 0 0 1) ( ) cos 0 L q d d + = R
& &
g x . (4)
The constraints(Eqs.(2)(4))canberewrittenas
( ) 0 = A q q & g , (5)
with
1 3 1 3 3
7 9 1 3 1 2 3
1 1 1 3
( ) ( )
( ) ( )
( ) 0
q q
q
q





=



C R C R 0 0
A q J R 0 J J
P R P 0
1
,
b
1 b
b
sin cos cos cos 0
0 1 cos / 2 0
0 1 cos / 2 0
L R
L R
L R
b b d b
d
d
+

= - +


- +

C ,
T
2
( cos 0 0) L d = C ,
b
1 b
b
cos sin sin 0
1 0 3 / 2 0
1 0 3 / 2 0
R
R
R
b b b - - -

= -



J ,
T
2
( sin sin sin ) L L L d d d = - - J ,
3
0 0
0 0
0 0
r
r
r


=



J ,
1
(0 0 0 1) = P ,
2
cos L d = P .
The number of degrees of freedom is the difference
between number of generalized coordinates and the rank
of constraints matrix. Obviously, the rank of A(q) is 6
therefore degreesoffreedomofthe robotis3.
For two possible cases of actuators implementation:
three motors provide the torque of b , d ,
1
f or d ,
3
f ,
5
f .Here we select the first case, and torque of wheel 3, 5
can be determined by the velocity around instantaneous
centerofrotation.
3.2 Dynamicmodeling
The Lagrange formulation is used to establish equations
ofmotionfortherobot.Thetotalkineticenergyisthesum
ofkineticenergyof body T
b
,legsT
l
andwheelsT
w
:
6 6
b l_ w_
1 1
i i
i i
T T T T
= =
= + +

, (6)
with
2 2 2 2
b b b
1 1
( )
2 2
T m x y z I q = + + +
&
& & & ,
l_ leg b
2
leg b
2 2
leg
2 2
1
( ( sin sin ) sin cos
2 2
1
sin ) ( ( cos cos )
2
1
cos sin sin ) ( cos )
2 2 2
1 1
( ) , 1, 2, 6,
2 2
i i
i
z y
L
T m x R d
d m y R d
L L
d m z
I I i
a b q d d b
b b a b q
b b d d b d d
q b d
= - + - -
+ + + +
- + - +
+ + =
& &
&
& &
&
& & &
&
& & &
2 2
l_ leg b
2 2
leg b
2
leg
1 1
( sin sin )
2 2 2
1 1
( ( cos ) )
2 2
1
( cos ) , 3, 4, 5,
2 2
i i z
i y
L
T m x R I
m y R d I
L
m z i
q a d d q
a q d
d d
= - + + +
- - + + +
- =
& & &
&
& &
&
&
&
2
w_ w
1
, 1, 2, 6
2
i i
T I i f = =
&
L ,
where m
b
and m
leg
are the mass of body and leg
respectively, R
b
is the radius of body, I
b
is the inertia
momentofbodywithlegsaroundaxisZ
b
.I
y
,I
z
areinertia
momentoflegaroundtheaxisY
ic
andZ
ic
passingthrough
P
ic
.I
w
isinertiamomentofwheelaroundtheaxisY
iw.
The total potential energy of robot is the sum of
potential energyof body and six legs:
b l
6 P P P = + , (7)
where
b b
( sin ) P m g r L d = + ,
l leg
( sin / 2) P m g r L d = + .
The Lagrange formulation with Lagrange multipliers
T
1 2 6
( ) l l l = L l and constraint equations f is as
follows:
d ( ) ( )
, 1, 2, , 9
d
i
i i i
T P T P f
Q i
t q q q
l
- -
- = + =



L
&
.
Based on the Lagrange formulation, the equation of
CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING
5
motionfortherobotinitswheeledmotionispresentedas
Eq. (8):
T
( ) ( , ) ( ) ( ) + = + M q q V q q E q A q && & t l, (8)
where M(q) is the 99 inertia matrix, ( , ) V q q & is the
vector of force determined by position and velocity,
T T T T
4 3 3 3 2 3
( ) ( )

= E q 0 I 0 ,
T
( )
b d f
t t t
1
= t ,
3 3
I is the unit
matrix.
S(q)isa 93 matrix inthenullspaceof A(q), i.e.,
( ) ( ) 0 = A q S q g , (9)
with
T T T T
4 3 3 3 2 3
( ) ( )

= S q S I S .
The constraint velocities are in the null space of A(q),
denote
T
1
( ) ( ) t b d f = v
& & &
,and one gets
( ) ( ) t = q S q v & . (10)
The multipliers l will be cancelled after substituting
theexpression && q intoEq.(8)bydifferentiatingEq.(10),
andpremultiplyingby
T
S .Finallythedynamicequation
of NOROS robotinwheeledmotionis
T
( ( ) ( ) ( ) ( ) ( , )) t t + + = S M q Sv M q Sv V q q
&
& & t . (11)
4 SlipRatio
Theslippageofwheelmayleadthe robotstuckorlose
control.Todealwiththisproblem,tractioncontrolsystem
should be designed to adjust the driving torque based on
the slip ratio which is the measure of the degree of
slippage,asseeninFig.5.Iftheslip ratiobecomeslarger
than the optimal slip ratio in the acceleration phase of
wheels, the drive torque should be decreased. On the
contrary, the driving torque should be increased in
decelerationifslip ratio becomessmaller.
f
&
Fig.5. Tractioncontrolsystembasedontheslip ratio
ForWMR,theslipratioisaprerequisiteparameterof
thesystemanditisusuallydefined as
[17]
R R
R R R
( ) / , ( ),
( ) / , ( ),
r v r r v
s
r v v r v
f f f
f f
- >

=

- <


& & &
& &
(12)
whereristheradiusofwheel, f
&
istheangularvelocity
of wheel, v
R
is the velocity of robot. The slip ratio is
positivewhenacceleratingandnegativewhenbraking.
UnlikeWMR,thetranslationalspeedofwheelaffected
by the alterable height ofrobot(thedottedgraphinFig. 5)
is not equal to the speed of NOROS robot. Moreover
the relative velocity of the fore wheels and the body is
opposite to that of thehind wheels and the body. So the
Eq. (12) should be improved for height changing robot
such as NOROS based on the relative velocity
betweenwheelandbody.
Assumethe robotmovesalongthexaxisandtheangle
betweenthe legand the groundvariesfrom d to d intime
t.(see Fig. 4)
'
h (sin sin ) L d d D = - ,
'
x (cos cos ) L d d D = -
are the height variation of body and the displacement of
wheelrespectively.v
v
isthevelocityofverticalmovement.
v
h
is the relative velocity of wheel to robot body in
horizontaldirection.Therelationshipbetweenv
v
andv
h
is
describedas
h v
cos ' cos
sin ' sin
v v
d d
d d
-
=
-
g . (13)
Fortheforewheel,theslipratio turns
R h R h
R h R h R h
( ) , ( ),
( ) ( ) , ( ),
r v v r r v v
s
r v v v v r v v
f f f
f f
- + > +

=

- + + < +


& & &
& &
(14)
Similarly,theslipratioofthe hindwheelturns
R h R h
R h R h R h
( ) , ( ),
( ) ( ) , ( ).
r v v r r v v
s
r v v v v r v v
f f f
f f
- - > -

=

- - - < -


& & &
& &
(15)
Therefore, the slip ratios of its fore wheels and hind
wheels are derived respectively through Eqs. (14), (15),
whichcontainanewvariable v
h
.
5 SimulationandAnalysis
5.1 Dynamicsin the different heights
The impact of vertical movement on torque of hip
DINGXilun,etal: Dynamicsand Wheels Slip RatioofaWheelleggedRobotinWheeledMotion Consideringthe Changeof Height 6
pitchingmotor ofNOROS on flatgroundisdiscussed
as follows. Therobot bodyis parallel to the ground, and
thuseachlegbearsthe sameburden.Thetorqueof the hip
pitching motor is calculated in three randomly different
pathsof H
i
.
Set the robot moving along xaxis without any
displacement in the yaxis. First path is that the robot
remains the same height 0.21 m during traveling. The
other two paths are sinusoids with different amplitude
andfrequency. The paths is definedrandomlyinEq.(16)
withthevariable motiontime t andshowninFig. 6:
( )
1
2
3
,
0,
, , 0.21,
0.21 0.03sin ,
0.21 0.02sin 0.5 .
i i
x t
y
H x y z z
z t
z t
=

=


= = =


= -

= -

(16)
Fig.6. Threepathsofdifferentheight
Accordingtothenotationintroducedbefore:
m
body
=30 kg m
leg
=5 kg L=300 mm R
b
=300 mm r=60
mm t=20 s q
ini
=(0 0 0 0.21 0 0.5236 0 0 0) I
y
=0.0375
kgm
2
.
The t
d
forthreepathsofdifferentheightarecalculated
basedontheEq.(11)andtheresultsareshowninFig.7.
All the initial values of three curves are 0. Torz1 is the
value of t
d
in the situation that the height remains at
0.21m and t
d
at 19.1Nm. When the alterable height
followsz
2
,Torz2changesperiodically.Thecycletimeis
6.28 s,themaximumandminimum torquesare 20.4N m
and17.5Nm respectively.Itmeansthat whentheheight
of the robot increases by0.03 m thetorquedecreases by
1.6Nm.SimilarlyTorz3states t
d
forthethirdpathz
3
.
This cycle time is twice of the second one, and the peak
value of Torz3 is smaller than that of Torz2, the
maximumis19.8Nm andminimumis18.2Nm.The
result demonstrates that the output torque is inversely
proportionalto theheight.
The validity of t
d
for these paths is verified by
ADAMSsimulation. Accordingtothenotationintroduced
before,therobot modelis establishedas shownin Fig.8.
The functions of hip pitching joint motion in those three
paths are respectively:
1
0 F =
2
arcsin(sin / 10) F t =
3
arcsin(sin(0.5 ) / 15) F t = . Torques of hip pitching motors
for thosethreepathscalculatedbyADAMSareshownin
Fig. 9. Compared with our results (Fig. 7) the variation
trend andvaluesof t
d
arealmostthesame. Themaximum
differenceislessthan0.4Nmattheminimumvalueof
Torz2whichmeansthe relativeerrorrate islessthan2%.
Therefore, it proves that the result calculated by our
dynamicmodeliscorrect.
T
o
r
q
u
e

o
f

h
i
p

p
i
t
c
h
i
n
g

m
o
t
o
r

/
N

m

d

t

Fig.7. Torquesunder differentpaths

Fig.8. ADAMSmodel
d

t

Fig.9. ResultofADAMSsimulation
CHINESEJOURNALOFMECHANICALENGINEERING
7
5.2 Slipratiointhedifferentheights
To illustrate the influence of robot height to the slip
ratio, simulations are performed in this subsection.
Assumetherobot still drives alongxaxisand there isno
displacement in yaxis the revolving speed of wheel is
100 rad/min and the velocity of body in the move
direction is 4.8 m/min when the robot height remain at
Z
1

=0.21m,then the slipratio isSR1=0.2determined by

Eq. (12).
When the height of robot follows the second path
'
2
0.21 0.05sin Z t = + , the slip ratio of fore wheel (SR2f)
and hind wheel (SR2h) are calculated based on Eq. (13),
(15), (16) and the results are shown in Fig. 10. At the
beginningtheslipratioisthedefaultvalue0.2.Thereisa
mutationvalue ofslipratio oncetherobotstartstochange
height. ThenSR2f andSR2hchangesmoothlywithvaried
height. They are symmetric with SR1. The maximum
valueis0.23andtheminimumis0.17.
The third path is
'
3
0.21 0.14sin0.5 Z t = + , the highest
value of Z
3

is 0.35 which nearly reaches to the

theoretical maximum height of 0.36 m(length of thigh is
0.3 m and radius of wheel is 0.06 m). Slip ratio of fore
andhindwheelareSR3fandSR3hrespectively.Because
the amplitude of height variation is greater and the
frequencyissmallerthanthatofthesecondpath,changes
takeplace atlarger scaleandmore slowlythan SR2.The
maximum and minimum values are about 0.28 and 0.12
respectively.
Fig. 11 and Fig. 12 present the relation between slip
ratio and alterable height in Z
2

and Z
3

respectively. The
characteristics of both situations are in common. The
results demonstrate that the slip ratio of fore wheel is
largerthanSR1buttheslipratioofhindwheelissmaller
thanSR1asthe height increases.At theinflectionpointof
Z
2

or Z
3

,theslipratiosofbothwheelsbecome0.2.Then
the situation of these two wheels exchange, i.e., the slip
ratio of hind wheel becomes larger than SR1 while the
fore wheels slip ratio decreases. Feeding the realtime
slip ratio of each wheel to the traction control system is
vital important to thesafetyoftherobot.
Fig.10. Slipratio according to thechangeofheight
SR1 SR2h SR2f
Z2'
Time /s
Fig. 11. Relationbetweenslipratioandheight
changeinpath2
Fig.12. Relationbetweenslipratioandheight
changeinpath3
6 Conclusions
(1) Considering the change of height, the dynamic
model of NOROS robot in wheeled motion is built
based on the Lagrange equation. The torques of hip
pitching motors are calculated for NOROS robots
three different paths. The result demonstrates that the
torqueof hip pitching joints areinversely proportionalto
the height of robot. Compared with the ADAMS results,
the validityofourdynamicmodelisverified.
(2) New slip ratio equations with the parameter of
bodys vertical velocityareproposed for fore wheels and
hind wheels respectively. The impact of robot height on
slipratioisinvestigated.Simulationresultsshowthatthe
slipratioofforewheelislargerthanthatofhindwheelas
theheightincreases.Onthecontrary,theslipratiooffore
wheel becomes smaller than that of hind wheel as the
heightdecreases.
(3) For the safety of the robot, it is very important to
have therealtime slipratio of each wheel to be provided
tothetractioncontrolsystem.
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Biographicalnotes
DING Xilun, born in 1967, is currently an professor at Beihang
University, China. He received his PhD degree from Harbin
Institute of Technology, China, in 1997. His research interests
includemechanismand robotics.
Tel:+861082338005Email: xlding@buaa.edu.cn
LI Kejia, born in1982, is currently a PhD candidateatSchoolof
mechanical engineering and automation, Beihang University,
China. He received his bachelor degree and master degree from
Northeastern University, China, in 2004 and 2007 respectively.
His research interests include mechanical design and robot
dynamics.
Tel:+861082339055Email: likejia5@gmail.com
XU Kun, bornin 1981,is currently a PhD candidateatschool of
mechanical engineering and automation, Beihang University,
China. He received his bachelor degree and master degree also
from Beihang University, China, in 2005 and 2008 respectively.
Hisresearchinterestsinclude robotdesignandkinematics.
Tel:+861082339055Email:xk_sea@163.com