Tip-over Terrain Detection Method based on the Support Inscribed Circle of a Mobile Robot

This paper proposes a tip-over detection method for a mobile robot using a support inscribed circle defined as an inscribed circle of a support polygon. A support polygon defined by the contact points between the robot and the terrain is often used to analyze the tip-over. For a robot moving on uneven terrain, if the intersection between the extended line of gravity from the robot's COG and the terrain is inside the support polygon, tip-over will not occur. On the contrary, if the intersection is outside, tip-over will occur. The terrain is detected by using an RGB-D sensor. The terrain is locally modeled as a plane, and thus the normal vector can be obtained at each point on the terrain. The support polygon and the terrain's normal vector are used to detect tip-over. However, tip-over cannot be detected in advance since the support polygon is determined depending on the orientation of the robot. Thus, the support polygon is approximated as its inscribed circle to detect the tip-over regardless of the robot's orientation. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, the experiments are carried out using a 4-wheeled robot, ERP-42, with the Xtion RGB-D sensor.

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