Design and Simulation Research on a New Type of Suspension for Lunar Rover

This article proposes a new type of suspension for lunar rover. The suspension is mainly constructed by a positive quadrilateral levers mechanism and a negative quadrilateral levers mechanism. The suspension is designed based on following factors: Climbing up obstacles, adapting terrain, traveling smoothly, and distributing equally the load of cab to wheels. In the article, firstly the structure of the new suspension is described, secondly the kinematics of the levers is analyzed, and the relational equations of the suspension levers are established, so the distortion capability of the suspension is known. In order to test the capability of suspension, we design a prototype rover with the new suspension and take a test of climbing obstacles, and the result indicates that the prototype rover with new type of suspension has excellent capability to climb up obstacles with keeping cab smooth. Based on the shortcoming found in test, we optimize the levers mechanism, and then establish the rover models with the new type of suspension and with Rocker-Bogie suspension based on ADAMS, and then the capability compare on simulation is followed. The further researching work for this new developed suspension is being carried out now so as to improve its overall performances. China has been determined to carry out the lunar exploration project in the near future. The proposed new type of suspension would provide a valuable technical support to it.