A Four-Wheel-Rhombus-Arranged Mobility System for a New Lunar Robotic Rover

Abstract

Different from traditional ground vehicles, planetary robotic rovers with limited weight and power need to travel in unfamiliar and extremely arduous environments. In this paper, a newly developed four-wheel-rhombus-arranged (FWRA) mobility system is presented as a lunar robotic rover with high mobility and a low-weight structure. The mobility system integrates independent active suspensions with a passive rotary link structure. The active suspension with swing arms improves the rover's capacity to escape from a trapped environment whereas the passive rotary link structure guarantees continuous contact between the four wheels and the terrain. The four-wheel-three-axis rhombus configuration of the mobility system gives a high degree of lightweight structure because it has a simple mechanism with the minimum number of wheels among wheeled rovers with three-axis off-road mobility. The performance evaluation of the lightweight nature of the structure, manoeuvrability and the mobility required in a planetary exploring environment are illustrated by theoretical analysis and partly shown by experiments on the developed rover prototype.

Dynamics of the wheeled chassis 8К4P during difficult obstacles overcoming

“…It should be noted that nowadays there are a large number of kinematic chassis schemes [1,2,4,7], which are covered in many publications devoted to the study of their dynamics [3,6] and solving various applications. A common disadvantage of such studies is a narrow area of their application.…”

“…Слід зазначити, що існує велика кількість кінематичних схем шасі [1,2,4,7], які освітлені у багатьох публікаціях, що присвячені дослідженням їх динаміки [3,6] і розв'язанню різних прикладних задач. Загальним недоліком таких досліджень, зазвичай, є вузька область їх застосування.…”

OriWheelBot: An origami-wheeled robot

“…Notably, the ability to navigate sandy terrain is crucial for robotic planetary explorations, such as missions to the Moon [31][32][33][34]. Existing planetary exploration robots rely on complex mechanisms and control systems to adapt to varying walking environments [35][36][37]. Consequently, there is a pressing need for engineering robots that are untethered, lightweight, require less assembly, possess adaptability, and offer multifunctionality.…”

Module-based structure design of wheeled mobile robot

“…Bartlett et al (2008) designed and developed a four-wheeled Scarab rover with an adjustable kinematic suspension for mobility and drilling in the lunar cold traps. Wen et al (2013) identified a four-wheelrhombus-arranged mobility system as lightweight structure for a novel lunar robotic rover with high mobility and manoeuvrability. Recently, by adopting the concept of reconfigurability, Lionel et al (2014) proposed the conceptual design of a two-state rover coined "transforming roving-rolling explorer" which is capable of reconfiguring the structure between rolling state and roving state for various tasks; and Aoki et al (2014) developed two types of deployable three wheeled rovers, named "Tri-Star IV" aiming for the use of lunar exploration.…”