Research of locomotive performance of small crawler for rough terrain exploration

-Relationship between blade shape and velocity-

Abstract

In recent years, demand for wide area survey is increasing in field exploration. In the conventional exploration method, a long time is required for wide area survey. Therefore, a method using many small rovers has been proposed. The authors developed a blade-type crawler that is added a flexible blades to the crawler belt. The blade-type crawler is suitable for this exploration method and has high running performance over rough terrain. However, the relationship between the shape of the blade and the running performance is not quantitatively clear. Thus, investigate the relationship between the shape of the blade and the running speed.