The TowPlow is a novel type of snowplow, which consists of a conventional snowplow vehicle and a steerable, plow-mounted trailer. The system is used to plow two typical traffic lanes simultaneously. In this paper, a linear dynamic model is developed in order to investigate the dynamic behavior of this system and its stability limits. Dynamic simulations of various maneuvers are performed, and kinematics-based control is implemented to investigate performance of the trailer's corrective steering. The goal is to ensure that the trailer does not intrude into adjacent lanes during plowing operations while also ensuring that both lanes are sufficiently cleared. Even though the control input is obtained from kinematic analysis, which does not take forces and inertia into account, the simulation results clearly show that the corrective steering helps the TowPlow meet its performance goals.
Issue Section:
Research Papers
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