Simulation-based acceptance testing for unmanned ground vehicles

Acceptance testing is considered a final stage of validation, and performing acceptance tests of an actual UGV system can be expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, this paper discusses simulation based acceptance testing for UGVs, which can significantly reduce the time and cost of the acceptance test. In this paper, both dynamic and static simulation models are developed, and the results from these simulations show that the static simulation can be used, rather than the more complex dynamic simulation, because of the slow operating speed of UGVs. This finding improves the development efficiently at the simulation model development phase. In addition, the developed simulation models provide a better understanding of the UGV failure modes. The static simulations can determine the required joint motor torques for various UGV loadings and maneuvers and provide data for the full range of operating motion. Specifically, given threshold joint torque value, the safe operating range of the two-link robot arm can be determined. A multi-body dynamics model of the iRobot Packbot was prepared in MSC ADAMS to simulate a full range of two-link manipulator operation. The static simulation model is implemented using MATLAB software.