Track Tension Estimation in Tracked Vehicles Under Various Maneuvering Tasks

Abstract

In this paper, track tension monitoring methodology is developed so that the track tension can be estimated under various maneuvering tasks such as longitudinal driving on sloping and/or rough roads, turning on flat or sloping roads, etc. The real-time information of the track tension is very important for tracked vehicles because the track tension is closely related to the maneuverability and the durability of tracked vehicles. In the case of longitudinal driving, a modified 3 DOF dynamics model is derived for tracked vehicles and is utilized for estimating the tractive force and track tension. In the case of turning, kinetic models for six road-wheels are obtained and used for calculating the track tension around the sprocket. This method does not require tuning of the turning resistance, which makes it difficult to estimate the track tension in turning. The estimation performance of the proposed methods is verified through simulations of the Multi-Body Dynamics tool. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method under various maneuvering tasks of tracked vehicles.