Experimental Verification of Distance and Energy Optimal Motion Planning on a Skid-Steered Platform

Mobile robots operating in the field need to be aware of the terrain and use this information to select the proper motion planning modality. For example, in very benign terrain it might be desirable to navigate to a goal following the shortest path. However, on challenging terrains, such maneuvers may be prohibitively expensive in terms of energy consumption. This paper summarizes field experiment results corresponding to a comparison between distance optimal and energy optimal motion planning for a skid-steered robot on different terrains. The results show that on average there is substantive energy savings associated with energy optimal motion planning.