Testing of planetary rover wheels

All robotic rovers for planetary exploration and the vehicles used to carry astronauts on the surface of the Moon used wheels as running gear. The same applies to the majority of projects for future exploration missions, both for the unmanned and manned rovers. Dynamic modeling of wheeled vehicles is a common practice in automotive technology, and commercial codes are usually employed. Such dynamic modeling however requires the knowledge of the wheel-terrain interaction that is usually beyond that available for the specific type of wheels designed for planetary rovers, in particular when they operate on regolith like in the actual working conditions. Test campaigns aimed at characterizing the behavior of the specific non pneumatic, elastic but sometimes rigid, wheels are required. They must be performed on the wheels designed for planetary rovers operating on specific soils simulating the terrain (the so-called planetary simulant) which can be found in the actual applications. A test rig that can be used to characterize the wheel-ground interaction under different operating conditions is here described and some tests aimed at characterizing its operation are reported

Testing of planetary rover wheels

All robotic rovers for planetary exploration and the vehicles used to carry astronauts on the surface of the Moon used wheels as running gear. The same applies to the majority of projects for future exploration missions, both for the unmanned and manned rovers. Dynamic modeling of wheeled vehicles is a common practice in automotive technology, and commercial codes are usually employed. Such dynamic modeling however requires the knowledge of the wheel-terrain interaction that is usually beyond that available for the specific type of wheels designed for planetary rovers, in particular when they operate on regolith like in the actual working conditions. Test campaigns aimed at characterizing the behavior of the specific non pneumatic, elastic but sometimes rigid, wheels are required. They must be performed on the wheels designed for planetary rovers operating on specific soils simulating the terrain (the so-called planetary simulant) which can be found in the actual applications. A test rig that can be used to characterize the wheel-ground interaction under different operating conditions is here described and some tests aimed at characterizing its operation are reported

Tests on Elastic Wheels for a Small Lunar Rover

All robotic rovers for planetary exploration and the vehicles used to carry astronauts on the surface of the Moon used wheels as running gear. The same applies to the majority of projects for future exploration missions, both for the unmanned and manned rovers. Dynamic modeling of wheeled vehicles is a common practice in automotive technology, and commercial codes are usually employed. Such dynamic modeling however requires the knowledge of the wheel-terrain interaction that is usually beyond that available for the specific type of wheels designed for planetary rovers, in particular when they operate on regolith like in the actual working conditions. Test campaigns aimed at characterizing the behavior of the specific non pneumatic, elastic but sometimes rigid, wheels designed for planetary rovers operating on specific soils simulating the terrain (the so-called planetary simulant) which can be found in the actual applications are required. A test rig that can be used to characterize the wheel-ground interaction under different operating conditions was presented at the 64th IAC. The research continued in the last year, and after the test rig was shown to work as expected, a first test campaign is now underway on the elastic wheels designed for a small lunar rove

Tests on Elastic Wheels for a Small Lunar Rover

All robotic rovers for planetary exploration and the vehicles used to carry astronauts on the surface of the Moon used wheels as running gear. The same applies to the majority of projects for future exploration missions, both for the unmanned and manned rovers. Dynamic modeling of wheeled vehicles is a common practice in automotive technology, and commercial codes are usually employed. Such dynamic modeling however requires the knowledge of the wheel-terrain interaction that is usually beyond that available for the specific type of wheels designed for planetary rovers, in particular when they operate on regolith like in the actual working conditions. Test campaigns aimed at characterizing the behavior of the specific non pneumatic, elastic but sometimes rigid, wheels designed for planetary rovers operating on specific soils simulating the terrain (the so-called planetary simulant) which can be found in the actual applications are required. A test rig that can be used to characterize the wheel-ground interaction under different operating conditions was presented at the 64th IAC. The research continued in the last year, and after the test rig was shown to work as expected, a first test campaign is now underway on the elastic wheels designed for a small lunar rove

Advanced modelling techniques for flexible robotic systems

The purpose of this paper is to present a 3 DoF underactuated mechanism with one flexible component. It is called FLEGX (FLEXible LEG) and it would be the first step in the design of a jumping humanoid robot with flexible limbs. An early system-level design validation of the FLEGX mechanical configuration was performed using the software MSC.Nastran ® and MSC.Adams ® -Matlab/Simulink ® integrated environment

Towards multi-body analyses for advanced flexible robotic systems

Manufacturers answered to the global competition rise by increasing the efficiency of their development process by substituing the hardware tests with their virtual counterpart. Following the same idea, in this paper, the introduction of the virtual prototyping technique in the design of a complex robotic leg is proposed. The novelty of this work is double: the first motivation lies on the characteristic of the mechanism, since it is a FLEXible jumping LEG; the second one, instead, regards to the introduction of methods well known in other research field but rarely used in robotics. This paper describes the whole design process, while the assembly of the physical prototype, the control development and the experimental tests will be matters of future works

Flexible Links for Flexible Interaction

we presented Flexible Links for Flexible Interactio

FLEGX: Multibody Approach in Flexible Structure Design and Control

Nowadays the robotic challenges are various and many of these are oriented towards bioinspired, safe and energy efficient solutions. The analysis of these systems traditionally is performed by considering rigid bodies and ideal connections thanks to the easier approach in studying their motion and performances. However, in all the cases when the structural deformations determine the magnitude of the external forces acting on the mechanism, the structural flexibility cannot be neglected. Considering these needs, the authors propose the development of a flexible robotic leg as a first step in the design of a jumping humanoid robot. It is called FLEGX (FLEXible Leg) and it has a double layer control system: low and high level respectively. The first one aims at obtaining an order reduction model, while the latter tends to produce a stable orbit in the state space variable to perform a controlled sequence of jumps. FLEGX design validation was performed using the software MSC.Nastran R and MSC.Adams R -Matlab/Simulink R integrated environment. Future works concern an extended campaign of experimental tests on the physical to collect data useful for validate the numerical models

Simulazione dinamica multibody del rover T0-R0 per la "European Rover Challenge"

La European Rover Challenge (ERC) è la più importante competizione di robotica spaziale che si svolge in Europa. La ERC, insieme alla University Rover Challenge (URC), è parte della prestigiosa Rover Challenge Series promossa dalla Mars Society. Durante la competizione i veicoli devono essere in grado di svolgere differenti compiti, tra i quali la raccolta e il trasporto di oggetti, oppure operazioni che simulino l’interazione con gli astronauti. Gli studenti del Team DIANA, gruppo di robotica spaziale del Politecnico di Torino, hanno progettato il rover T0-R0 con l’obiettivo di partecipare all’edizione del 2017 della ERC. Uno dei requisiti fondamentali che deve essere rispettato dai team è rappresentato dal costo netto del veicolo il quale non può essere superiore a 15000 euro. Con lo scopo di ridurre i tempi e i costi di sviluppo del rover e di limitare i rischi connessi alla costruzione del prototipo reale, sono state condotte numerose simulazioni dinamiche, in ambiente integrato MSC Adams® – MathWorks Matlab/Simulink®, che hanno permesso una comprensione precoce della dinamica del veicolo in funzione delle differenti soluzioni costruttive adottate