Journal of Terramechanics 41 (2004) 187198

Journal of Terramechanics
www.elsevier.com/locate/jterra

Development of a vehicle to study the tractive performance of integrated steering-drive systems

B.C. Besselink
Agricultural Machinery Research and Design Centre, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia Available online 18 May 2004

Abstract This paper describes a test-bed vehicle for studying the integration of the steering system of a wheeled vehicle with the drive system. The vehicle was produced in order to determine whether such an integrated system is practical; to investigate tractive performance compared to other steering-drive systems; and to determine under which conditions such a system has better performance. The integrated steering-drive system of the test-bed vehicle uses a computer to co-ordinate the independently driven wheel speeds of the drive system (which is also the primary steering system) with the steer angles of the non-driven steerable wheels to produce a benecial secondary steering eect. The secondary steering system assists the primary steering system when side forces act on the vehicle, while producing minimal conict. This concept can be applied to agricultural vehicles such as tractors, harvesters, mowers, sprayers and self-propelled windrowers. The test-bed vehicle is able to be congured for the following steering-drive systems types: open dierential drive with steerable wheels, independent drive wheels with castors, locked dierential drive with steerable wheels and a computer integrated steering-drive system. The capacity of the test-bed vehicle to be congured as described is a signicant advantage when measuring tractive performance, as the results obtained will be more valid due to the vehicle parameters being the same. 2004 ISTVS. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Tractive eciency; Zero turn radius vehicle; Steer by wire; Computer control; Drive systems

1. Introduction The two basic conventional two-wheel-drive congurations for wheeled vehicles are independent drive and dierential drive.
0022-4898/$20.00 2004 ISTVS. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jterra.2004.02.001

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With an independent drive system, the left-drive wheel and right-drive wheel are driven independently by means of a variable ratio transmission. Examples of wheeled vehicles that use this system are garden tractors, ride-on mowers and selfpropelled windrowers. In these vehicles, the non-driven wheels must be castors: otherwise, signicant ground damage and handling problems occur when turning. Compared to a vehicle with a dierential, these vehicles have a high degree of manoeuvrability and traction. When both the left-drive wheel and right-drive wheel are driven forward at the same speed, the vehicle moves straight ahead. On the other hand, when both the left-drive wheel and right-drive wheel are driven at equal and opposite speeds the vehicle rotates about the centre of the drive axle (a zero turn radius (ZTR) vehicle). The independent drive means that if one drive wheel loses traction, the other drive wheel is not aected and the vehicle is still able to move. This contrasts with the behaviour of vehicle with an open dierential. However, when traversing steep slopes, the castors cannot exert a sideways force, so the end of the vehicle with the castors tends to move down the slope due to the gravitational turning moment acting on the vehicle (where the centre of gravity is substantially forward of the drive wheels). This presents a signicant limitation in this situation. In order to maintain the direction across the slope, a counteracting moment must be provided by increasing the dierence in drive speeds to produce a dierence in thrust between the two drive wheels. Thus, there is a decrease in tractive capability in order to increase steering capability. This may lead to a loss of traction and control. As well, on at slippery terrain, castors also have a disadvantage: a sudden loss of traction on one drive wheel will cause a sudden steering deviation. The castors cannot contribute any steering eect to reduce or eliminate the deviation since they cannot hold a side force. The most common drive system for a two-wheel-drive vehicle is one that has a dierential. It is a relatively simple mechanical drive system that provides equal torque to both drive wheels and produces minimal scung in turns. In this case, the drive wheels cannot provide a steering eect, as they are not independent. The vehicle is steered by changing the rolling direction of the non-driven wheels. The benet when traversing slopes is that the non-driven wheels can hold a side force. The steering behaviour of a vehicle with a dierential is more stable under changing tire-surface conditions than a vehicle with independent drive wheels. With a dierential, although total thrust is reduced when the traction conditions are dierent for each drive wheel, the driving torques will be equal; and if the rolling resistances are equal, the thrusts will be equal. Hence, there is no turning moment induced under these dierent conditions. However, when one wheel has lower traction, a vehicle using a dierential has disadvantages. Dierences in traction characteristics may come about from dierent tire-surface characteristics or weight distribution. Since a dierential delivers equal torque, the wheel with better traction characteristics can only deliver the same amount of torque as the wheel with the lower traction. To overcome this problem, various forms of dierential locking or drive shaft braking techniques are used. These result in poor handling. For example, locking the dierential enables the steering eect from wheel speeds, and the equal wheel speeds create a tendency to

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move the vehicle straight ahead. The application of a braking eect to a drive wheel produces energy losses. Generally, manoeuvrability is reduced and handling is impaired. As well, vehicles in an agricultural context require traction control on an ongoing basis since the drive wheels of an agricultural vehicle usually operate with high longitudinal slip. Whereas with road vehicles, traction control is only required for a small percentage of the time. A wheeled vehicle having the tractive advantages of two independent drive wheels but having steerable non-driven wheels has greater design possibilities with respect to weight distribution, space considerations, and wheel sizes. It should also have improved tractive ability, mobility and safety on slopes and slippery surfaces. The aim of the authors current research is to integrate the steering and drive systems of a wheeled vehicle having two independently driven wheels. The steering and drive systems are to be integrated using a computer with an appropriate algorithm. Another objective of the research is to investigate the performance of such a vehicle, particularly in turning and especially on slopes and slippery terrain, and to compare it with conventional systems. Contrary to conventional two-wheel-drive vehicles, the two-wheel-drive vehicle developed will have a steering system at one end from wheel direction (steerable wheels) and at the other end from wheel speeds (independent drive wheels). The purpose of this paper is to describe the design of the test vehicle and control system hardware being used for this research.

2. Background Besselink and Spark [4] have described a computer controlled steering-drive system for four-wheeled vehicles having two independently driven wheels. The steering-drive system is proposed to be achieved by replacing the two castors of the conventional system with two steerable non-driven wheels. These are positively turned to steer angles appropriate to the radius of curvature produced by the wheel speeds of the two independently driven wheels. A microprocessor is used to determine the appropriate steer angles. The microprocessor uses an algorithm based on the mathematical relationship between the wheel speeds of the two independently driven rear wheels and the Ackerman steer angles of the two front steerable wheels. Sensors are used to determine the speed and direction of the two driven rear wheels and the microprocessor controls the actuators that turn the non-driven wheels to the appropriate steer angles. Further mathematical relationships have been developed for vehicles having more than two driving wheels and more than four wheels [3,5,6]. The paper by Spark and Besselink [4] presents the mathematical relationships and some analysis of the motion of the vehicle. However, the analysis for the development of a practical computer algorithm was not presented. The presence of the inverse tangent function in the mathematical expressions presented some problems with instability for a steerable wheel as Blair and Spark [2] highlighted (but did not solve). The other references do not disclose a computer algorithm either.

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Besselink [1] presented an analysis of the motion of a vehicle with two independently driven rear wheels and described a computer algorithm which solves the instability problem and which emulates and improves upon the motion of a zero turn radius vehicle with two drive wheels. 3. Theory 3.1. Steering eects The radius of the turning circle of a wheeled vehicle is a result of either or both of the following two steering eects: the radius of curvature produced by the independent wheel speeds of the left drive wheels and the right drive wheels; and/or the radius of curvature produced by the rolling direction of the wheels of the vehicle. However, for a conventional four-wheeled vehicle in a turn, when both of these steering eects are operating there is conict between them. An extreme example of this conict occurs with a skid-steer vehicle, such as a four-wheeled skid loader. The wheels of the vehicle are always directed straight ahead and hence would produce an innite radius of curvature if acting alone. However, this steering eect conicts with the dominant eect: the radius of curvature resulting from the dierent independent wheel speeds selected by the operator. The actual turn radius will be a compromise between the two radii of curvature. The conict results in extreme scung, ground damage, tire wear, fuel wastage and, in some cases, reduced manoeuvrability. The traditional method to avoid this conict is to disable one steering eect. Zero turn radius vehicles do not have any steering conict because the non-driven wheels are made inoperative as steerable wheels by turning them into castors. The steering is solely from the independent drive wheel speeds. With a conventional motor vehicle, the steering eect of the drive wheel speeds is eliminated by the inclusion of a dierential, which removes their independence. As a result, there is no conict between the two systems. 3.2. Integrated steering-drive systems For a two-wheel-drive vehicle of typical conguration with equal front and rear tracks, the mathematical relationship between the speeds of the drive wheels and the steer angles for the steerable wheels is detailed as follows (Spark and Besselink [4]):    b xR /L tan1 1 ; 1 t xL    xL 1 b /R tan 1 ; 2 t xR where b is the wheel base of the vehicle; t, the track of the vehicle when front and rear tracks are equal; xL and xR are the rotational wheel speeds of the rear left and rear right drive wheels of the primary steering system respectively; /L and /R are the steer angles of the front left and front right wheels of the secondary steering system respectively. It is

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assumed that the drive wheels have equal wheel diameters. An understanding of the terms used may be obtained from Fig. 1 (which is for unequal track). Fig. 1 depicts a vehicle with a primary steering system using two independently driven wheels and a secondary steering system using the wheel direction of the front non-driven wheels. tB is the track of the rear wheels; tF is the track of the front wheels; R is the radius of the turning circle of the vehicle. Clockwise rotations are regarded as positive and have a positive radius of curvature. The following equations for the general case, where the track of the front wheels is dierent to the track of the rear wheels, were developed by Besselink [1]. The underlying assumptions in all these equations is that there are no slip angles on any wheels and that longitudinal slip is the same on each drive wheel. For the front left steerable wheel,   2bxL xR 1 /L tan : 3 xL tB tF xR tB tF Similarly, for the front right steerable wheel,   2bxL xR /R tan1 : xL tB tF xR tB tF

We can see that if tB tF , the equations simplify to the equations developed by Spark and Besselink [4]. For a vehicle using two independently driven wheels and only one steerable wheel at the front, we have the case where tF 0. Hence, the equation for the steer angle is as follows:   2bxL xR / tan1 ; 5 tB xL xR

Fig. 1. Geometry of a 2WD2WS vehicle with unequal track.

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where / is the steer angle of a lone non-driven wheel. This relationship is used as the basis for the computer algorithm of the test-bed vehicle described later. 3.3. Measures of performance Drawbar performance is the most important performance indicator for o-road vehicles that are designed to pull or push various types of working machinery, e.g., tractors. The main measures are as follows. Drawbar pull, Fd , is the force available at the drawbar, and is equal to the difference between the driving force, F , developed by the wheels and the resultant reP sisting force, R, acting on the vehicle: X Fd F R: 6 Drawbar power, Pd , is the product of drawbar pull and vehicle speed and represents the potential productivity of a vehicle. It is dened by the following: Pd Fd V ; 7 where V is the actual forward speed. Tractive eciency (or drawbar eciency) is usually dened as the ratio of the output power of a tractive device to its input power. The equation for tractive eciency may be expressed as follows: gd Pd ; PW 8

where PW is the power inputted to the driven wheels. Generally, all the traditional performance measures are for vehicles travelling in a straight-line and on level ground. Performance characteristics in turns will be measured in this project; and due to the presence of slip angles, the component of tire force in the direction of motion needs to be considered in these expressions. However, it is not possible to investigate these considerations in this paper. 3.4. Test-bed vehicle The requirements of the test-bed vehicle were as follows: to provide a practical example of a computer integrated steering-drive system; to allow instrumentation of the vehicle for measuring tractive performance; to be capable of being instrumented to assist in the validation of the computer models developed in the project; and to provide comparisons between dierent conventional vehicle congurations. The basis of the test-bed vehicle is a John Deere Z-Trak 757 (Fig. 2). This is a zero turn radius (ZTR) lawn mower. Although it is a ride-on mower, at 25 hp, it has a power rating near to that of a small tractor but with the benet of a hydrostatic drive system. Being a hydraulically driven vehicle, it is capable of being converted to a vehicle with dierent drive congurations by changing the arrangement of the hydraulic lines. Thus, the tractive eciency of dierent drive congurations may be

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Fig. 2. John Deere Z-Trak 757.

compared directly on the same vehicle. As well, when modied to include a drawbar, it should be able to handle moderate to high drawbar loads. Since the computer-integrated concept can be extended from a three-wheeled vehicle to a four-wheeled vehicle, the three-wheeled vehicle design was selected over a four-wheeled vehicle. It eliminates problems resulting from uneven load distribution when the terrain is uneven. A suspension system was considered, but this would make the vehicle too complex without entirely removing the weight distribution problem. It also provides a close emulation of a tractor-type vehicle since the usual trunnion mounted front axle of a tractor has a stability that is similar to a threewheeled vehicle. Hence, the two castors were removed and replaced with a front wheel module with a single wheel. 3.5. Front wheel module The front wheel module had to have a wheel which was steerable: in some cases, manually and in other cases automatically by the computer (depending on the conguration chosen). Therefore, a 12 V 130 W electric motor was connected to the vertical axis of the front wheel via a chain and two sprockets. Using this arrangement instead of linkages allows the possibility of an innite number of turns. The position sensor for feedback to the computer is described in a later section. The front wheel module was made to be congurable as a conventional castor, as well as a steerable wheel. Thus, the original zero turn radius conguration could also be compared with the other congurations (see Fig. 3). In order to obtain the characteristics for a specic tire of a steerable wheel for use in computer models, the front wheel module can be detached and mounted with a dynamometer on a rolling trolley device with guides. This device allows side force and rolling resistance to be measured for dierent vertical loads, tire pressures and slip angles.

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Fig. 3. Steerable wheel and castor conguration of front wheel module.

The module is also adapted for the mounting of a specially designed dynamometer for the measurement of forces along any of the three axes. Spacers are used when the dynamometer is not present. 3.6. Control system The control system consists of the following: a computer, a data acquisition card, relays and electronics, and control sensors. The program for the control of the steering-drive system is loaded in a notebook computer that is interfaced with the control sensors via a data acquisition card (National Instruments DAQCard-1200). The data acquisition card has 24 digital inputs/outputs, eight analog inputs, two analog outputs and three counter/timers. One counter may be used to generate a pulse output. The steering motor on the front wheel module is switched on and o by a set of relays triggered from the digital outputs of the data acquisition card. 3.7. Control sensors The computer program compares the appropriate steer angle for the front wheel to the current steer angle. The current steer angle is measured with an angular position sensor. This is a Hewlett Packard HEDS-5701#E10 optical encoder rated at 200 pulses per turn; but since it also has quadrature encoding, further electronics produces 800 pulses per turn. This encoder is an incremental encoder and not an absolute encoder, and so some further electronics (which includes an up/down counter) produces an absolute encoder for the time it is powered on. The use of an encoder allows an innite number of turns to be made by the steerable wheel, as well

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as allowing a complete rotation to be measured. Potentiometers generally do not cover 360, and if capable of innite rotation have a discontinuity between the ends. The drive wheel rotational speeds are measured for inputting into the control program by optical encoders (Allen-Bradley Bulletin 845T Optical Incremental Encoder 360 pulses per turn) mounted on each drive wheel. The pulses from the two encoders are used to gate two counters on the data acquisition card: one counter for each drive wheel. The third counter is used to the generate the set frequency of pulses which are gated by the encoders. Hence, the drive wheel rotational speeds are inversely proportional to the counts. This system is able to produce estimations of speed more rapidly than by counting the pulses outputted by the encoders. The above sensors are required for a basic control system. Further sensors are required for a more sophisticated system. 3.8. Performance measurement sensors Various sensors are required in order to determine tractive performance. The power input and power output are required for eciency measurement. For power input, the input torque to the wheels and rotational speed need to be measured. In conventional tractor experiments, torque load cells are used (and rotational velocity measured) on an input shaft. These are not be able to be applied in the testbed vehicle as it is hydraulically driven. Since the rotational speed of each of the drive wheels is already required for the computerised steering-drive control system, it is advantageous to measure the torque at each drive wheel as well. With the test-bed vehicle, this is conducted by measuring the pressure drop across each hydraulic drive motor using pressure sensors. The pressure drop across a motor is a function of torque and rotational speed. With a set of calibration curves, the torque can be determined from the measured pressure drop and the rotational speed. One pressure sensor (Measurement Specialties Inc. MSP-600-350) is on the inlet and the other on the outlet of each motor. The pressure sensors input data to the data acquisition card via the analog inputs. Since the torque input is measured for each drive wheel, an extra benet, in terms of analysis, is that the torque distribution between the drive wheels is able to be determined. For output power, the drawbar pull and velocity at the drawbar hitch is required for drawbar eciency. In a straight line, the velocity at the drawbar hitch is the vehicle velocity. For turning, the velocity of the hitch needs to be determined either directly or by deduction. Drawbar pull is measured with a load cell. When turning, the draw angle also needs to be known and this is measured using a potentiometer connected to an analog input of the data acquisition card. When the instrumentation is set up for tractive (drawbar) eciency, other common measures of performance, such as drawbar power, can also be calculated. 3.9. Dynamometer A dynamometer was designed and constructed for mounting on the front wheel module (see Fig. 4). It consists of a S-type load cell sandwiched between two 10 mm

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Fig. 4. The dynamometer designed for measuring forces on the front wheel.

plates with ve small roller bearings and guides. It has overall dimensions of 200 mm 200 mm 70 mm. The dynamometer or a number of dynamometers can be mounted in the front wheel module to measure force in the vertical axis (vertical load), lateral horizontal axis (side force) and longitudinal horizontal axis (rolling resistance). The amplied load cell output is inputted via an analog input of the data acquisition card to the computer. The forces on the front wheel are not necessary for standard tractive eciency measurement. However, the forces are needed to validate computer simulations developed in the project for each of the steering-drive systems. 3.10. Comparison of congurations An aim of the research is to compare the tractive performance of the computer integrated steering-drive system with conventional steering-drive systems. In order to compare like with like (experimentally, rather than with computer simulations), it was desirable to have a test-bed vehicle that was able to adapt to dierent steeringdrive congurations. Hence, factors such as track, wheelbase, tire type, vehicle weight, weight distribution, and power would be the same for each conguration. The front wheel module (as described already) is one element of the adaptable steering-drive conguration concept used in this research (note that the castor option produces a slightly varying wheel base in turns). The other element is the adaptable hydraulic circuit that was tted. An hydraulically driven vehicle was chosen because of its potential for re-conguration compared to a mechanically driven vehicle. The original drive system of the test-bed vehicle is an independent drive system with one variable displacement hydraulic pump matched with one xed displacement hydraulic motor for each drive wheel. Fig. 5 shows the three dierent hydraulic circuits that can be congured with two pumps and two motors: independent, open dierential and locked dierential (1:1 speed ratio) drive systems. These are the three congurations of interest. This allows

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Fig. 5. Independent drive, open dierential and locked dierential hydraulic congurations obtained using the hydraulic circuit designed for the project.

the comparison of following steering-drive systems: open dierential drive with wheel direction steering, independent drive with wheel speed steering (and castor), locked dierential drive with wheel direction steering, and the computer integrated steering-drive system. The original hydraulic pipes were removed and replaced with an arrangement of hoses and valves that can be congured to these three drive systems relatively easily. Opening two valves switches the circuit from independent drive to dierential drive. To obtain the locked dierential drive two short hoses are disconnected, and a longer hose installed between the outlet of one motor and the inlet of the other. For the locked dierential conguration, it was considered that a system with valves was too complex and not necessary. The John Deere Z-Trak 757 as it appears after modication is shown in Fig. 6.

Fig. 6. John Deere Z-Trak 757 after modication.

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4. Conclusion The test-bed vehicle outlined in this paper demonstrates the feasibility of an improved wheeled vehicle that uses a computer integrated steering-drive system and that has two independent drive wheels and steerable non-driven wheels. This vehicle has all the tractive advantages of two independent drive wheels with none of the disadvantages. The secondary steering system assists the primary steering system (from the drive wheel speeds) when side forces act on the vehicle, while producing minimal conict. As it is hydraulically driven, the test-bed vehicle can be instrumented in a unique way to measure the parameters required for tractive performance, in particular, tractive eciency. This is achieved by utilizing the outputs of the sensors of the control system and providing additional measurement sensors. The capacity of the test-bed vehicle to be congured to emulate a range of steering-drive systems provides a signicant advantage when measuring tractive performance, due the vehicle parameters being the same. Hence, since like is compared with like, the performance comparisons are more valid than if dierent vehicles using these steering-drive systems were compared. The major advantage of a vehicle using a computer integrated steering-drive system, as described, is the improved ability to traverse steep slopes and the ability to have larger non-driven wheels. The latter allows improved load carrying capacity. The presence of a steering system at each end of the vehicle allows greater variation of load distribution while maintaining the same level of steering capability.

References
[1] Besselink BC. Computer controlled steering system for vehicles having two independently driven wheels. Comput Electron Agricult 2003;39:20926. [2] Blair DB, Spark IJ. Computer controlled integrated steering/drive system for vehicles. In: ASME Computers in Engineering Conference, California, USA, 1996. [3] Lu J, Spark IJ, Vains GG, Spriggs KR. Computer integrated steering/drive systems with steering wheel control. In: Proceedings of I.E. Aust. Conference on Control Engineering, Sydney, Australia, 1997. p. 23641. [4] Spark IJ, Besselink BC. Zero turn radius vehicle incorporating computer-controlled intelligent castors. In: ASME Computers in Engineering Conference, Minneapolis, USA, 1994. p. 82527. [5] Spark IJ, Ibrahim MY. Integrated mechatronics solution to maximise tractability and eciency of wheeled vehicles. In: IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, Como, Italy, 2001. [6] Spark IJ, Ibrahim MY, Spriggs KR. Maximising the tractive eort, drive eciency and manoeuvrability of wheeled mobile robots. In: Proceedings of International Conference on Robotics, Vision and Parallel Processing for Industrial Automation, Ipoh, Malaysia, 1996. pp. 84351.