Toronto graduate student Sadath Malik, working under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Goldenberg, provided the associated movie showing his use of MSC's Adams software to simulate mobile robots with tracked systems. Sadath used an advanced module developed in Sweden called the Adams Tracked Vehicle (ATV) toolkit to create the virtual prototype of an existing robot.
The ATV toolkit was used for the dynamic modeling of the robot's track system in order to capture its flexible behavior and the interaction with its surroundings. Until now, the ATV toolkit has been extensively used for simulating large tracked vehicles like military tanks, cranes, off-highway equipment, etc. Here a first attempt has been made to use this module to model a small tracked mobile robot whose track system is considerably different from that of large tracked vehicles in its construction and operation.
The virtual prototype was validated using test results from the existing physical prototype. Simulations were done in different terrain conditions like flat ground, stairs, slopes, motion over obstacles, etc in order to study the dynamic characteristics of the robot and in finding if the robot can safely negotiate the terrain.
Many other useful results including motor torque required to perform these operations can also be obtained. The same validated process can now be used to verify new tracked mobile robot designs for which there is no physical prototype available yet.
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