DESIGN AND PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS OF RETRACTABLE-CLAW WHEELS FOR FIELD ROBOTS

作者:Yue R*; Xiao J; Li K; Du J; Wang S
来源:International Journal of Robotics and Automation, 2010, 25(3): 250-258.
DOI:10.2316/Journal.206.2010.3.206-3403

摘要

This paper presents a new retractable-claw wheel with six sets of claw mechanism to improve the capability of climbing obstacles. The structure and performance of the retractable-claw wheel is analysed. A robot prototype named as Rabbit is developed with retractable-claw wheels. The experimental results show that the Rabbit robot can move smoothly in various terrain conditions (e.g., flat; step, slope; and multiple-obstacle). Experiments demonstrate that the retractable-claw wheels enable the robot to traverse over steps whose height is 1.4 times of the wheel radius; war sloped terrains up to 40 degrees tilt angle, which is much larger than conventional robots can do. The retractable-claw wheels are proved to be suitable for planetary rovers or field robots.

  • 出版日期2010