Influence evaluation of wheel surface profile on traversability of planetary rovers

Author

Sutoh, Masataku ; Ito, Tsuyoshi ; Nagatani, Keiji ; Yoshida, Kazuya

Author_Institution

Dept. of Aerosp. Eng., Tohoku Univ., Sendai, Japan

fYear

2010

fDate

21-22 Dec. 2010

Firstpage

67

Lastpage

72

Abstract

Planetary rovers play a significant role in surface explorations on the Moon and/or Mars. However, because of wheel slippage, the wheels of planetary rovers can get stuck in loose soil, and the exploration mission may fail because of this situation. To avoid slippage and increase the wheels´ drawbar pull, the wheels of planetary rovers typically have parallel fins called lugs on their surface. In this study, we conducted experiments using two-wheeled testbeds in a sandbox to provide a quantitative confirmation of the influence of lugs on the traversability of planetary rovers. In this paper, we report the results of the experiments, and discuss the influence of lugs on the traversability of planetary rovers.

Keywords

aerospace robotics; planetary rovers; planetary surfaces; slip; space research; wheels; exploration mission; influence evaluation; loose soil; parallel fins; planetary rovers; sandbox; surface explorations; traversability; two-wheeled testbeds; wheel drawbar pull; wheel slippage; wheel surface profile; Force; Moon; Pulleys; Silicon; Soil; Stress; Wheels;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

System Integration (SII), 2010 IEEE/SICE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Sendai

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-9316-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SII.2010.5708303

Filename

5708303