A Systematic Approach to Kinematics Modeling of High Mobility Wheeled Rovers

The paper proposes a systematic, data-driven method for kinematics modeling of high mobility wheeled rovers traversing uneven terrain. The method is based on the propagation of position and orientation velocities starting from the rover reference frame and going through various joints and linkages to the wheels. Equations of the motion are set up in a compact form, which only require the D-H parameters of the rover joints and links. To illustrate the proposed kinematics modeling, the method is applied to a rover similar to the NASA's Sample Return Rover.