Study of a Planetary Exploration Rover with a Hinge-type Center-of-gravity Shift Mechanism

Abstract

The rover for future Mars exploration will be expected to have higher rough terrain traveling performance compared with conventional rovers. In this paper, we propose a rover with a weight of about 30 kg that can be transported to Mars by a Japanese rocket. The purpose of this study is to propose and develop a hinge-type movable center-of-gravity mechanism wherein the bending of the rover's body with a motor shows high rough terrain-driving performance with minimum degrees of freedom. The proposed mechanism's performance is evaluated by conducting travel experiments on a assumed terrain, that is, a hard rock with a grade inclination of 45 deg and a height of 0.15 m above the sand. The effectiveness of the proposed mechanism in getting over a step was confirmed by conducting experiments using a prototype model.