Tire Force Estimation of Unmanned Ground Vehicles on Off-Road Terrains for Navigation Decisions

This paper proposes a method of tire force estimation designed for use in navigation decision making for Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) operating on off-road terrains. This method (called the Centroid Method) uses a 3D point cloud representation of the terrain to determine tire-ground interaction, and a linear spring to determine the corresponding tire forces. Simulation results of tire force estimation of the Centroid Method are compared against the experimentally validated MF-Swift model, including on a fractal terrain surface which simulates a rough off-road terrain. The results show that the Centroid Method performs well for longitudinal and vertical tire force estimation especially for lower frequencies up to about 8-21Hz. Although the Centroid Method does not provide the same detail as the advanced tire models such as MF-Swift, it is significantly less complex and simpler to implement for enabling efficient on-board UGV navigation decision making.