Design methodology, synthesis, and control strategy of the high-speed planetary rover

Abstract

The planned missions to explore the surfaces of the Moon and Mars require high exploration efficiency, thus imposing new demands on the mobility system of planetary rovers. In this paper, a design method for a high-speed planetary rover (HPR) is proposed, and the representative configurations are modeled and simulated. First, the influence of the planetary surface environment on the design of HPRs is analyzed, and the design factors for HPRs are determined by studying a single-wheel suspension. Second, a design methodology for HPRs is proposed. The adaptive suspension mechanisms of a four-wheeled rover are synthesized using the all-wheel-attachment condition and position and orientation characteristics theory, which are expressed in the form of a graph theory for the increase in elastic components and active joints. Finally, a dynamic model is built, and a simulation is carried out for the proposed rover. The validity of the proposed method and rover is verified, thus highlighting their potential application in future planetary exploration.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

design methodology / spectrum analysis / high-speed / planetary rover / type synthesis

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Nomenclature

Abbreviations
DOF	Degree of freedom
ESM	Electronic supplementary material
HPR	High-speed planetary rover
POC	Position and orientation characteristics
SLC	Single loop chain
SOC	Single open chain
Variables
Ai (k)	k wheels connected to the base through i DOFs
Ak	Amplitude of the cosine wave
B	Half of wheel track
Cj	j constraints between t movable connections
f	Amplitude–frequency characteristic
fi	DOF of every joint
fs (ω), fu (ω)	Fourier transforms of active force at about xs and xu
fz, fφ, fθ	Amplitude frequency characteristics of vertical acceleration, pitch acceleration, and roll acceleration
F	System DOF
Fa	Active force of suspension
Fi	Partial DOF
Fp, Fa	Expressions of ground input and active force
g	Gravitational constant
G (nk)	Power spectral density function
H (jω)	Frequency response function
Iφ, Iθ, Iγ	Pitch, roll inertia of the rover, and inertia of synchronization-link
kpz, kpφ, kpθ	Coefficient of proportional control
ks, cs	Stiffness and damping of soft suspension
kt	Stiffness of the wheel
l1	Half of distance of the ipsilateral swing arm
l2	Length of the swing arm
m	Number of joints
ms	Sprung mass
mw	Mass of the wheel
M	Number of DOFs of suspension
Mbi	POC set of the ith branch
Mv, Cv, Kv	Coefficient matrices of mass, damping, and kiffness
n	Number of components
nk	Frequency within the interval [nmin, nmax]
nmax	Maximum of the frequency
nmin	Minimum of the frequency
N	Number of wheels
Nc	Contact force in single suspension
Ni (i = 1,2,3,4)	Contact force of four wheels
p	Number of terms used to build up the road surface
r0	Linkage ratio
r (x)	Road surface roughness
\ddot{r}(t)	Acceleration excitation of the ground
R	Radius of wheel
u	Speed of rover
U	Velocity of rover
v	Independent loops
x	Global coordinate measured from the left end of a stretch
x	Vector representing the generalized coordinates of the system
xr, xu, xs	Vertical displacement of road, wheel, and sprung mass
x_{\text{wfl}},x_{\text{wfr}},x_{\text{wrl}},x_{\text{wrr}}, {\dot{x}}_{\text{wfl}},{\dot{x}}_{\text{wfr}},{\dot{x}}_{\text{wrl}},{\dot{x}}_{\text{wrr}}	Displacement input and velocity input of the road at four wheels
{\ddot{x}}_{\text{w}1},{\ddot{x}}_{\text{w}2},{\ddot{x}}_{\text{w}3},{\ddot{x}}_{\text{w}4}	Acceleration of four wheels
z, φ, θ	Vertical displacement, pitch, and roll of the body
γ	Angle of the synchronization-link
αi (i = 1,2,3,4)	Angle of the swing arm
β	Initial angle of the swing arm
θk	Random phase angle with uniform probability
ω0	Natural frequency of system
ωz, ωφ, ωθ, ωγ	Natural frequency of heave, pitch, roll, and warp
τ	Time delay
τi (i = 1,2,3,4)	Active force of joints
μd	Dynamic friction coefficient
μs	Static friction coefficient
{\xi }_{L_i}	Independent motion equation number
\xi {}_{L_j}^{\prime }	Independent motion equation number of the jth independent SOC
{\xi }_{\mathit{\text{z}}},{\xi }_{\phi },{\xi }_{\theta },{\xi }_{\gamma }	Damping ratio of heave, pitch, roll, and warp

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the Foundation for Innovative Research Groups of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51521003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51975140 and 52005122), the “111” Project of China (Grant No. B07018), and the Harbin Institute of Technology Key Project Research and Development Grant of China (Grant No. HIT2021005).

Electronic Supplementary Material

The supplementary material can be found in the online version of this article at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11465-024-0783-5 and is accessible to authorized users.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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