Development of a Tow Capacity Test Device for Small Unmanned Vehicles

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dc.contributor.authorBarnett, Shaneen
dc.contributor.committeechairReinholtz, Charles F.en
dc.contributor.committeememberAhmadian, Mehdien
dc.contributor.committeememberWicks, Alfred L.en
dc.contributor.departmentMechanical Engineeringen
dc.date.accessioned2014-03-14T20:30:45Zen
dc.date.adate2006-01-24en
dc.date.available2014-03-14T20:30:45Zen
dc.date.issued2005-12-15en
dc.date.rdate2006-01-24en
dc.date.sdate2006-01-16en
dc.description.abstractUnmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) will increasingly be used for tasks such as retrieving injured soldiers from a battlefield, transporting supplies, and towing other small vehicles and payloads. To date, the unmanned test community has not standardized on an apparatus or test operating procedure (TOP) specifically for evaluating the towing capacity of small unmanned ground vehicles. Draw-bar testing has been adapted by several groups to quantify small unmanned ground vehicle (SUGV) tow capacity; however, these devices are inherently limited to measuring peak static towing force. This paper describes an alternative method using a variable-resistance tow sled for quantifying the dynamic towing capacity of SUGVs. The tow sled contains a frontal skid plate and a rear axle and wheel arrangement. A weighted carriage is transferred from the rear of the sled to the front of the sled by a cable geared to the rear axle. As the sled is pulled along the ground, towing resistance increases in a controlled linear fashion. An encoder on the rear axle and a load cell in the tow chain provide motion and force data. Testing of the tow sled has been conducted on a TALON SUGV at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) Small Robot Test Facility and a MATILDA SUGV at the Joint Unmanned Systems Test, Experimentation, and Research (JOUSTER) site.en
dc.description.degreeMaster of Scienceen
dc.identifier.otheretd-01162006-102808en
dc.identifier.sourceurlhttp://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-01162006-102808/en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10919/30968en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherVirginia Techen
dc.relation.haspartBarnett_Thesis.pdfen
dc.rightsIn Copyrighten
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/en
dc.subjectSmall Unmanned Vehicle Testingen
dc.subjectMetricen
dc.subjectMobile Towed Dynamometeren
dc.subjectDrawbaren
dc.titleDevelopment of a Tow Capacity Test Device for Small Unmanned Vehiclesen
dc.typeThesisen
thesis.degree.disciplineMechanical Engineeringen
thesis.degree.grantorVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State Universityen
thesis.degree.levelmastersen
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Scienceen

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