Abstract
On the Moon or Mars, common exploration targets for mobile robots (rovers) are covered in loose soil, which can cause slippage. To reduce the risk of wheel slippage, analysis of the mechanics of contact interaction between the soil and wheel is important. Various normal stress distribution models have been proposed until now, but most models assume that the stress distribution is uniform across the width of the wheel that for the sake of ease. This assumption is inaccurate. Therefore, in this research, we measured 2-dimensional normal stress distributions of a wheel traversing over soft soil, with 10 data points across the width of the wheel. In addition, the curved surfaces of each 2-dimensional normal stress distribution have clear relationships to the wheel's center of gravity at each time of measurement. Finally, we intend to use this data to build a 2-dimentional stress distribution model for a wheels on soft sand. In this paper, we report the results of a 2-dimensional stress distribution experiment and the relationship between the stress distributions and wheel's center of gravity.
