Comparison of Gradeability of a Wheel-Legged Rover in Wheeled Mode and Wheel-Legged Mode

The gradeability of a rover is important for the detection in Mars exploration mission. The traditional rovers used in former American Mars projects and Chinese Chang’e project are all wheeled rover. The gradeability of this type rover is limited by the wheel-soil interaction. The wheel-legged rover has stronger gradeability than wheeled rover because it can use more soil strength. This paper proposes the structure of a wheel-legged rover utilizing the rocker-bogie suspension, the kinematics principle and terrametrics principle of the rover. In wheel-legged mode, the traction force provided by the brake wheel is more than 1.5 times of the drawbar pull of a same size driving wheel. This paper compares the gradeability of mobile system in the wheeled mode and the wheel-legged mode when the rover climbs 20° slope, compares the maximum power of mobile system when rover climbs 20° slope in different modes, and predicts the maximum power of rover in climbing 25° slope utilizing wheel-legged mode.

[1]  Zongquan Deng,et al.  Mobility performance evaluation of lunar rover and optimization of rocker-bogie suspension parameters , 2008, 2008 2nd International Symposium on Systems and Control in Aerospace and Astronautics.

[2]  Guangjun Liu,et al.  Longitudinal slip versus skid of planetary rovers' wheels traversing on deformable slopes , 2013, 2013 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems.

[3]  Haitao Li,et al.  Relative position determination between Chang’E-3 lander and rover using in-beam phase referencing , 2015, Science China Information Sciences.

[4]  Keiji Nagatani,et al.  Experimental study and analysis on driving wheels' performance for planetary exploration rovers moving in deformable soil , 2011 .

[5]  Ch. Grand,et al.  Locomotion Modes of an Hybrid Wheel-Legged Robot , 2005 .

[6]  Steven Dubowsky,et al.  Mobile robot kinematic reconfigurability for rough terrain , 2000, SPIE Optics East.

[7]  David P. Miller,et al.  High-Speed Traversal of Rough Terrain Using a Rocker-Bogie Mobility System , 2002 .

[8]  B.H. Wilcox,et al.  ATHLETE: An Option for Mobile Lunar Landers , 2008, 2008 IEEE Aerospace Conference.

[9]  Zhen Liu,et al.  A novel active deform and wheel-legged suspension of Mars rover , 2016, 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO).

[10]  Jinyan Fan,et al.  Partially positive matrices , 2015 .

[11]  A. R. Reece,et al.  Prediction of rigid wheel performance based on the analysis of soil-wheel stresses part I. Performance of driven rigid wheels , 1967 .

[12]  Jeffrey E. Chottiner.  Simulation of a six wheeled Martian rover called the Rocker Bogie , 1992 .

[13]  Jeffrey J. Biesiadecki,et al.  Traverse Performance Characterization for the Mars Science Laboratory Rover , 2013, J. Field Robotics.