Stability Prediction for UGV Based on Drone-Borne LiDAR Terrain Mapping

The stability of vehicles is one of the most important factors of safety. When assessing the conditions for the stability of the vehicle, on-road and off-road vehicles differ in many aspects, and because of this, specific methods are needed to describe the stability conditions for terrain vehicles. In this paper, the aspects of off-road vehicle stability are assessed, and terrain vehicle-specific stability modeling methods are shown. After that, LiDAR-based terrain mapping technology and the measurement and remote sensing possibilities for the variables affecting stability, both from the vehicle and terrain, are introduced. Field measurements conducted with a small-scale remote-controlled vehicle are presented, the measured and model-predicted stability values are compared, and it is concluded that the theoretical model does describe the actual values accurately enough that the differences can be mitigated by introducing a safety factor. At the end, some further possibilities are proposed for the improvement of the stability modeling method.