CCCA'12

Special Session / Workshop proposal
Active security systems for off-road vehicles and robots.

General scope

The increasing capabilities of off-road vehicles in terms of terrain configuration (slope, grip conditions) and functionalities, permits to move on enhanced areas. It allows to access to new environments easier, but may lead to hazardous situations, for both vehicle and operator and many accidents are recorded. They are mainly due to a collision with an obstacle or to a driving error leading to rollover. If passive devices, such as ROPS (ROllover Protection Structure) may reduce the consequences of rollover on human safety, they do not permit to avoid such hazardous situations. Moreover, since they are designed to dissipate the energy due to the shock, they rely on vehicle mass and may be very heavy and inconvenient. As a result, the development of active devices for driver safety or autonomous robots integrity preservation may arise as an alternative solution allowing to reduce the risks due to off-road motion.
The fully automatic devices as well as driver assistance systems, dedicated to preserve the integrity of off-road machines and robots, will then be investigated. Several level of automation will then be presented. From estimation algorithm allowing to warn the driver for the risk of rollover, up to autonomous and safe navigation including obstacle avoidance, many developments contributing to a safe off-road motion will be detailed, from a robotics point of view. This consequently includes not only algorithms but also mechatronics system design to increase dynamic properties.
Among several projects related to robotics, the french research Agency have funded particularly two projects related to that topics: the just finished Fast Project and the ongoing ActiSurTT project. This session is focused on presenting some of the results obtained in these project related to off-road machines safety.

Main topics

- Rollover risk estimation
- Stability preservation
- Obstacles detection and avoidance
- Mechatronic safety devices

Talk proposals

Obstacle detection and avoidance for safe off-road Robots navigation
Simon Lacroix, LAAS

High speed control of off-road mobile robots : from stability preservation up to traversability notion
Roland Lenain, Irstea

Design and control of an active anti-roll bar for dynamic stability of mobile robot
Faiz Ben Amar, ISIR

Rollover risk estimation through geometrical and dynamical metrics of off-road vehicle
Joanny Stephant + Benoit Thuilot, Xlim + Institut Pascal

Stability of huge machines in off-road condition : from analysis to diagnosis
Nacer M'Sirdi, LSIS