Traction controller for crawler vehicles

A traction controller for a crawler vehicle in which transverse pairs of crawlers are provided on front and rear sides, respectively, of a vehicle body, and driving of sprockets of the crawlers is controlled independently, comprising:

• a track frame of each of the crawlers is disposed rotatably in forward and backward directions of the vehicle body by means of a pivot shaft;
• the traction controller includes:
• load detecting means for detecting a load applied to each of the crawlers;
• computing means for computing a sum of loads applied to a pair of crawlers on a front left side of the vehicle body and on a rear right side of the vehicle body and for computing a sum of loads applied to another pair of crawlers on a front right side of the vehicle body and on a rear left side of the vehicle body on the basis of results of detection by the load detecting means;
• and
• drive controlling means for controlling driving of each pivot shaft of the pair of crawlers whose sum of the loads is smaller of the two sums of the loads of the pairs in a direction in which the loads applied to the same pair of crawlers increase, and for controlling driving of each pivot shaft of the pair of crawlers whose sum of the loads is greater of the two sums of the loads of the pairs in a direction in which the loads applied to the same pair of crawlers decrease when a difference between the sums computed by the computing means becomes a predetermined value or more.