Manipulative difficulty of a mobile robot pushing and towing multiple trailers

Abstract

The change of difficulty in manipulating a tractor pushing or towing multiple trailers is investigated in this paper. This difficulty varies if physical parameters such as the position of the joint or the number of the trailers is changed. The present authors focus on this change. A quantitative measure of the manipulative difficulty [manipulative difficulty index(MDI)] of tractor-trailers system is introduced. In addition, quantitative comparisons of typical examples of the changes of the physical parameters of tractor-trailers are presented.