Abstract
This paper presents the sinkage sensing using the grouser embed a function to measure reaction from soil for wheels of lunar rovers. The wheels that traverse loose soil like lunar surface have the grousers like puddle. The grousers transfer the trust to the wheels or the body of rovers. Therefore, the grousers are needed to traverse loose soil for wheels of lunar rovers. The interaction between the wheel with grousers and loose soil can be expressed using kinematic model. Moreover, when the wheel is traversing loose soil, the wheel sinks into soil. If the rover knows usually the sinkage, it does not become the poor condition. It is very important and effective to detect the inserting angle of the wheel to understand usually the sinkage on time. In this paper, we develop the sensing wheel with the grousers with a tactile sensor to detect the sinkage. From experiments using, we discuss about the effectiveness of this proposed wheel.
