Stabilizing Agricultural Robots Against Intense Rollovers With Control Moment Gyro

ABSTRACT

Rollover accidents involving agricultural wheeled robots, accompanied by severe mechanical impacts, pose serious threats to operational safety and reduce functional efficiency. To address this issue, an active rollover prevention strategy is proposed, utilizing a single‐gimbal control moment gyro (SGCMG), to stabilize typical agricultural robots and prevent potential rollovers. To match the free oscillation of the pivot front axle, a novel recovery torque model of the coupled robot‐SGCMG system is established, in which two patterns are introduced to refine the rollover process with uncertain parameters. Additionally, a lateral stability index is adopted and analyzed to assess the hazard level of potential rollovers. Aimed at handling uncertain parameters and hazard levels, an adaptive backstepping control strategy is developed for real‐time anti‐rollover implementation. Within this strategy, control gains are adaptively tuned based on theoretical derivations, thereby suppressing rollover tendency while minimizing tuning effort. For verification, a scaled experimental platform, designed according to similarity theory, is constructed to ensure safety of personnel and equipment. Experimental results show that the proposed method can precisely regulate the output torque of the gyro, rapidly and effectively mitigating the risk of imminent rollover. This method provides a promising solution for wheeled robot stability and a theoretical basis for advanced safety control in agricultural robotics.