System Design and Experimental Verification of Mobile Lunar Lander

Abstract

A mobile lunar lander was proposed to address the problem that the conventional surface lander, which cannot actively adjust attitude and flexibly roam, is not suitable for future missions such as large-scale surface exploration and surface base construction. Firstly, the system composition of the mobile lunar lander and the composition of each subsystem were introduced. Secondly, the functions and implementation of the variable configuration body and the buffering/driving integrated buffer were introduced. Thirdly, a kinematic model of the buffering/walking integrated leg-foot mechanism was established, the walking gait and turning gait with fewer posture adjustment times were designed, and the trajectories of the joints of the leg-foot mechanism under the conditions of foot-end stepping and whole-unit posture adjustment were planned. The gait simulation was completed by building a virtual prototype model of the whole machine. Finally, a walking test prototype was developed and a test auxiliary facility was built, and the walking gait experiment was completed. The results show that the proposed mobile lander gait design is reasonable, the motion trajectory of the active drive joints is smooth and supple, the lander body has no large undulation and deflection during the movement, the walking speed can reach 0.01m/s, and the turning speed can reach 0.6°/s.

Keywords

mobile lander / kinematics / gait planning / prototype test