Dynamic Analysis of Tracked Mobile Manipulator Used in Agriculture

In the recent last few years, robots have been used extensively for various agricultural purposes. However, there are still some areas in developing agricultural robots that need special attention from the researchers. An agricultural robot will have to negotiate rough terrains in the field while performing some specific tasks. This study deals with the analysis of a tracked vehicle with a pesticide spraying system and a serial manipulator mounted over it. This tracked mobile manipulator could be used to serve numerous purposes in the agricultural field, such as plant health monitoring, plant disease identification, pesticide spraying, fruit/vegetables harvesting, etc. It deals with CAD modelling of the complete robotic system and its dynamic modelling. As the robot is meant to be operated in off-road conditions, Terra-mechanics theory has been used to capture the relationship between the running gear and terrain. Single track-terrain interaction is first studied and modelled based on the Terra-mechanics theory. Skid steering of the tracked vehicle is also modelled in this paper.