Proposal of Airless Variable Rigidity Wheel for Driving in the Disaster Area

Abstract

Because disaster areas have various road conditions, wheel characteristics must be changed to suite to them. Since it is inefficient to change wheels at the disaster areas, a single wheel is required to have multiple characteristics. Therefore, an airless variable rigidity wheel for driving in disaster areas is proposed. It is equipped with a variable rigidity mechanism using a belt drive. In this drive system, the petal-shaped parts that necessary to change the wheel characteristics can be interlocked. In this way, the wheel can be given the characteristics of stiffening and softening. Then, a single-wheel driving experiment is conducted on soft ground with a traction load to confirm the driving performance. As a result, it is shown that the switching of the wheel characteristics has the effect of preventing the wheel from getting stuck.