Motion Kinematics Analysis of a Horse Inspired Terrain-Adaptive Unmanned Vehicle With Four Hydraulic Swing Arms

All terrain vehicles (ATV) perform tasks in unstructured environments where the advanced adaptive ability of rigid terrain has become a key factor. In this article, we propose a novel horse inspired all terrain eight-wheeled vehicle with four swing arms for transportation in the mountain battlefield. The mechanism structure and system configuration of the ATV are designed based on the horse leg kinematics analysis. In order to analyze the obstacle surmounting strategy of the ATV, the kinematics model and the center of gravity of the ATV are represented. A model reference adaptive control method is proposed for the hydraulic attitude control system. Then the model for obstacle surmounting is proposed for dynamics performance and geometric kinematics. Additionally, the simulation is executed in Adams to verify the analysis and strategy. Finally, the experiment is demonstrated for climbing a vertical wall, which is a challenging and typical terrain of the mountain battlefield.