The process of predicting hazardous conditions involves the numerical solution of the equations of motion while enforcing the constraint that the vehicle remain in contact with the terrain. This process is a feedforward process where the current vehicle state furnishes the initial conditions for numerical integration. This is accomplished by integrating out the time dimension to generate a vote for each steering direction based on a normalization of the worst case of all of the considered hazards. In the figure, the system issues a left turn command to avoid the hill to its right. The histograms represent the votes for each candidate trajectory, for each hazard.
Higher values indicate safer trajectories.
The hazards are excessive roll, excessive pitch, collision with the undercarriage, and collision with the wheels. The tactical vote is the overall vote of hazard avoidance. It wants to turn left. The strategic vote is the goal-seeking vote. Here it votes for straight ahead.