Modeling and Analysis of a Rocker-Bogie System to Improve its Performance

Abstract

Rocker bogies are fairly well used by many organizations like NASA, Military and Exploration channels like the National Geographic. Over the past decade NASA has built several roves with the rocker-bogie design due to the fact that it has become a proven mobility application known for its superior vehicle stability and obstacle-climbing capability, the most famous one being the Curiosity rover sent to Mars in 2011, and another one sent to land on an asteroid of interest. But current rocker bogie's designs are complex, costly and prone to mechanical failures. The current designs employ a six-wheel design which has a few drawbacks addressed in this report. Based on the well-known rocker-bogie suspension system, this report has specifics how the design of the original rover was tweaked and modified to significantly improve its functional and nonfunctional features in mainly three areas namely the stability, speed, and load-bearing capability. This work was based on findings on total deformation, Equivalent elastic strains and Equivalent stress acting on the proposed design. Extensive work has been done on areas like design, material selection, and operational features. The major one was the addition of an extra set of wheels which helped to maintain continuous contact with the ground. It has helped to increase required frictional force also. Some other non-functional features like a wireless camera addition and Bluetooth control support have also been added for increased functionality. CATIA was used for part modeling and assembly while Ansys was used for meshing and analysis. The maximum increase of up to 41 % was observed in structural stability in the proposed design.