Development of a Mobile Vehicle Manipulator Simulator for the Validation of Shared Control Concepts

TL;DR

This paper introduces a real-time, open-source simulator for large vehicle manipulators that supports testing shared control concepts through integrated human-automation interaction and qualitative validation.

Contribution

It develops a novel real-time simulator with nonlinear vehicle and manipulator models, code generation, and user interface for validating shared control in vehicle manipulators.

Findings

Successful integration of nonlinear models into real-time simulator

Code generation into C++ ROS nodes demonstrated

Qualitative validation confirms model accuracy

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a real-time simulator for the validation of controlling a large vehicle manipulator. The need for this development can be justified by the lack of such a simulator: There are neither open source projects nor commercial products, which would be suitable for testing cooperative control concepts. First, we present the nonlinear simulation model of the vehicle and the manipulator. For the modeling MATLAB/Simulink is used, which also enables a code generation into standalone C++ ROS-Nodes (Robot Operating System Nodes). The emerging challenges of the code generation are also discussed. Then, the obtained standalone C++ ROS-Nodes integrated in the simulator framework which includes a graphical user interface, a steering wheel and a joystick. This simulator can provide the real-time calculation of the overall system's motion enabling the interaction of human and automation. Furthermore, a qualitative validation of the model is given. Finally, the functionalities of the simulator is demonstrated in tests with a human operators.