This study focuses on developing an assessment tool for the performance prediction of lightweight autonomous vehicles
with varying locomotion platforms on coastal terrain involves three segments. A table based on the House of Quality
shows the relationships - high, low, or adverse - between mission profile requirements and general performance
measures and geometries of vehicles under consideration for use. This table, when combined with known values for
vehicle metrics, provides information for an index formula used to quantitatively compare the mobility of a user-chosen
set of vehicles, regardless of their methods of locomotion. To study novel forms of locomotion, and to compare their
mobility and performance with more traditional wheeled and tracked vehicles, several new autonomous vehicles -
bipedal, self-excited dynamic tripedal, active spoke-wheel - are currently under development. While the terramechanics
properties of wheeled and tracked vehicles, such as the contact patch pressure distribution, have been understood and
models have been developed for heavy vehicles, the feasibility of extrapolating them to the analysis of light vehicles is
still under analysis. wheeled all-terrain vehicle and a lightweight autonomous tracked vehicle have been tested for
effects of sand gradation, vehicle speed, and vehicle payload on measures of pressure and sinkage in the contact patch,
and preliminary analysis is presented on the sinkage of the wheeled all-terrain vehicle. These three segments -
development of the comparison matrix and indexing function, modeling and development of novel forms of locomotion,
and physical experimentation of lightweight tracked and wheeled vehicles on varying terrain types for terramechanic
model validation - combine to give an overall picture of mobility that spans across different forms of locomotion.
Access to the requested content is limited to institutions that have purchased or subscribe to SPIE eBooks.
You are receiving this notice because your organization may not have SPIE eBooks access.*
*Shibboleth/Open Athens users─please
sign in
to access your institution's subscriptions.
To obtain this item, you may purchase the complete book in print or electronic format on
SPIE.org.
INSTITUTIONAL Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.
PERSONAL Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.