Assess attitude fidelity of the quasi-static single-support contact model

Establish whether the quasi-static reduction in which each wheel rests at the maximum support height over its footprint reproduces the vehicle’s actual attitude under the evaluated contact conditions.

Background

The paper reduces rigid contact to a height-map operation: each wheel’s support height is the maximum of the terrain heights adjusted by the wheel-geometry offsets. The resulting supports are then mapped affinely to vehicle pitch and roll.

The authors explicitly note that the attitude produced by this equilibrium contact model was not measured in the study. Consequently, the propagation results validate uncertainty transmission relative to the model’s internal belief, not whether the simplified contact model reproduces the vehicle’s physical attitude.

References

We resolve contact quasi-statically (rigid body and terrain at equilibrium under gravity), reading each wheel's support from the cells under its footprint, as clearance evaluation reads per-wheel bounds from each wheel box; whether it reproduces this vehicle's attitude is not measured here (Section~\ref{sec:limitations}).

— Propagating Elevation-Map Uncertainty Through the Contact Maximum in Closed Form  (2610.06103 - Kučera et al., 5 Oct 2026) in Section 3.1, “From non-penetration to a maximum” (Section 3.1 of the paper)