Ramirez-Serrano, AlejandroWilson, Graeme Neff2013-09-122013-11-122013-09-122013http://hdl.handle.net/11023/944The traversal of rough a priori unknown terrain by an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) at high-speed requires the assessment of terrain in front of the vehicle as well as algorithms to select a speed based on the identified terrain. Current techniques are either susceptible to miss-classification, do not address the challenge of speed selection, or have not been experimentally tested. This thesis proposes a geometric terrain identification technique where a range sensor captures a 3D terrain point cloud and uses the standard deviation of the terrain point elevations to determine a roughness score. Using this roughness score three methods were proposed in this thesis to select a fast but safe allowable speed for a UGV based on predicting the force the terrain will exert on the UGV while driving. These methods were experimentally tested on rough outdoor terrain to demonstrate and compare their performance.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Electronics and ElectricalMechanicalRoboticsUnmanned Ground VehiclesTerrain AssessmentTerrain IdentificaitonSpeed Selectionmaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/26369