This paper proposes a method to reduce the pose error and to solve the dead reckoning issue which occurs when the mobile robot with continuous-tracks travels in the unstructured environments. When the continuous-track type mobile platform travels on terrain such as sand, gravel, stairs and etc., slippage occurs and thus the driving state of the mobile robot cannot be recognized normally. To compensate for this pose error, the proposed method utilizes optical flow estimation detected by camera. This method is tested through experiment. Finally, This method reduces the pose error detected on inertia measurement unit within some limit, while the pose error of without compensation increases without limit during robot move.

Various robot platforms have been designed and developed to perform given tasks in a hazardous environment for the purpose of surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, and etc. We have considered a terrain adaptive hybrid robot platform which is equipped with rapid navigation on flat floors and good performance on overcoming stairs or obstacles. Since our special consideration is posed to its flexibility for real application, we devised a design of a transformable robot structure which consists of an ordinary wheeled structure to navigate fast on flat floor and a variable tracked structure to climb stairs effectively. Especially, track arms installed in front side, rear side, and mid side are used for navigation mode transition between flatland navigation and stairs climbing. The mode transition is determined and implemented by adaptive driving mode control of mobile robot. The wheel and track hybrid mobile platform apparatus applied off-road driving mechanism for various professional service robots is verified through experiments for navigation performance in real and test-bed environment.