火星極冠の氷上走行に適した車輪形状の提案

抄録

Mars exploration is rapidly progressing in this century by orbiters, landers and rovers. Recently, they have discovered several evidences of existence of water and water ice under the surface. Water on Mars is one of the most important subject both for useful resource and scientific interest. Especially, Mars polar caps are believed to be formed from huge amount of ice of water or carbon dioxide, and direct exploration on the polar caps by rover will bring valuable knowledge on water on Mars. However, almost all studies of Mars rovers assume Martian surface as rocky or sandy terrain, no ice. Therefor we propose design of wheels which is suitable on ice. The proposed shape has sharp spikes along both sides of cylindrical wheels to prevent slip on ice. In order to evaluate effectiveness of the proposed shape on ice, experimental models has been made by 3D printing, together with some other shapes for comparison. Result shows the proposed shapes give better friction coefficient on ice than conventional model.