Abstract
A tracked vehicle with sub-tracks has high mobility on rough terrain. In this research, the authors have developed a tracked mobile robot which consists of two main-tracks and multistage sub-tracks in order to increase the mobility. The robot has four sub-tracks at each end of main-tracks and additional multiple tracks which have a unit structure at the end of sub-tracks. We can extend the number of tracks as multistage tracks easily by the unit structure. Since the end sub-tracks can be folded, the robot is able to switch its running mode such as six tracks mode, eight tracks mode and so on. This paper describes the mechanism of the track and the robot with ten tracks developed as a prototype. The unit mechanism of track consists of a drive motor mounted inside the unit and an angle control motor mounted in its pre-stage track. Experimental results showed an improvement in the step-climbing ability for the eight tracks mode.
