This article summarizes a recent collaboration at the University of Michigan's Automotive Research Center that considered best use of batteries in ground robots from several perspectives, such as planning the mission and tracking energy during its execution. The paper illustrates the four main subproblems addressed in this collaboration. Specifically, an area coverage problem is considered using a tracked robot, and the development of an energy-efficient coverage plan is first addressed. Track-terrain interaction is then modeled to better predict the power consumption due to locomotion on different types of terrains. Using a coverage problem as an example, this article shows that managing the battery and the mission properly is critical for ground robots to successfully complete given tasks and make maximum use of their capabilities. To this end, the problems of energy-efficient coverage planning, predicting the locomotion power requirements, controlling the battery power with thermal and electrical constraints, and tracking the mission energy requirements online based on a combination of prior knowledge and real-time data are all tightly connected to each other.
Keeping Ground Robots on the Move Through Battery & Mission Management
Tulga Ersal is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His expertise is in modeling, identification, simulation, and control of system dynamics, including hardware-in-the-loop simulation, with applications to batteries and vehicle powertrains among others.
Youngki Kim is a Ph.D Student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests include design and control of hybrid electric vehicles and lithium-ion battery modeling and estimation.
John Broderick is a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests include modeling and control of ground robots to increase reliability.
Tianyou Guo is a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests include vehicle dynamics modeling and control, robotics, terramechanics and sizing and design of hybrid vehicles. His current research focuses on power modeling and control of small unmanned ground vehicles.
Amir Sadrpour is a graduate student in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on energy-based mission reliability assessment for unmanned ground vehicles.
Anna Stefanopoulou is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan and the Director of the Automotive Research Center. Her research interests include estimation and control of internal combustion engines and electrochemical processes such as fuel cells and batteries.
Jason Siegel is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests cover electrochemical energy storage and conversion for automotive applications.
Dawn Tilbury is a Professor at the University of Michigan's Mechanical Engineering Department. Her research includes distributed control of mechanical systems with network communication, logic control of manufacturing systems, reliability of ground robotics, and dynamic systems modeling of physiological systems.
Ella Atkins is an Associate Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the safe operation of robotic systems through the management of anomalies, concentrating on aerial vehicles.
Huei Peng is a Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His research interests include adaptive control and optimal control, with emphasis on their applications to vehicular and transportation systems. His current research focuses include design and control of hybrid vehicles and vehicle active safety systems. He is currently the U.S. Director of the DOE sponsored Clean Energy Research Center-Clean Vehicle Consortium.
Jionghua (Judy) Jin is a Professor in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan. Her research interests are primarily in the areas of industrial statistics and quality engineering. Most recently, her research has focused on data fusion for complex system modeling, design innovation, and performance improvement through optimized decision making, with applications to various automotive and semiconductor manufacturing processes, transportation, and human decision support systems.
A. Galip Ulsoy is a C.D. Mote, Jr. Distinguished University Professor of Mechanical Engineering and the W.C. Ford Professor of Manufacturing at the University of Michigan. His research interests focus on dynamic modeling, analysis, and control of mechanical systems.
Ersal, T., Kim, Y., Broderick, J., Guo, T., Sadrpour, A., Stefanopoulou, A., Siegel, J., Tilbury, D., Atkins, E., Peng, H., Jin, J. (., and Galip Ulsoy, A. (June 1, 2014). "Keeping Ground Robots on the Move Through Battery & Mission Management." ASME. Mechanical Engineering. June 2014; 136(06): S1–S6. https://doi.org/10.1115/6.2014-Jun-4
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