Abstract
Recently there have been a lot of attention to developing planetary rovers for Lunar or Mars Exploration. In 1997, Mars Pathfinder succeeded in landing Martian surface and the micro-rover “sojourner” could travel on Mars. Toward the turn of the century, several schemes sending an unmanned mobile explorer to the moon or Mars are being planned for scientific exploration. Planetary rovers are required to travel safely over a long distance for many days in unknown terrain and are also required to explore rough and steep areas such as craters, cliffs, etc. to achieve scientific goals. Most of the proposed rovers have some wheels to move on a planetary surface. However, a legged rover can provide higher capability of moving in such a rough terrain than wheeled robots. Therefore the authors have studied a small and light-weight rover which can move across a rough terrain such as a steep slope inside craters. A prototype of the robot with six legs has been developed. This paper presents the system concept, architecture, and configuration of the developed walking rover for planetary exploration. This paper also discusses a stability criterion and a walking algorithm for static walking in a rough terrain.
