対地適応型4クローラ走行車HELIOS-IIの開発

抄録

The design and motion experiments of the newly constructed crawler vehicle HELIOS-II with four track are discussed. The features of HELIOS-II are as follows; (i) The introduction of an equilibrium crawler which is supported at the central part of the tracks and is able to swing independently. (ii) The introduction of coupled drive system to increase the output power of installed actuator. (iii) The development of a new torque sensor consisting of a photosensor mounted onto a ring gear of a planetary gear reduction mechanism. (iv) The introduction of a new compliant nipple. (v) The introduction of impedance control scheme to maintain the horizontal posture of the carrier.
The motion experiments of the HELIOS-II to crawl over an obstacle, climb and descend stairs, and rotate on the spot are shown and the validity of the introduced control is demonstrated.