The Inflatable Rover uses novel, large, inflatable wheels to climb over rocks, instead of traveling around them, thus enabling it to traverse over 99% of the Martian surface. Preliminary tests using commercial nylon balloons as tires, a rigid metal chassis, and a simple, joy-stick control, have shown great promise. Tests have been successfully conducted in rugged rocky canyons, on giant sand dunes, and on calm lakes (simulating the liquid methane lakes anticipated on Saturn's moon Titan). Future work will be concentrated in the areas of materials research for the inflatable tires, development of a collapsible chassis, and adaptation of existing algorithms for image recognition and hazard avoidance.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    Inflatable Technology for Robotics


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    Fourth International Conference and Exposition on Robotics for Challenging Situations and Environments ; 2000 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States


    Published in:

    Robotics 2000 ; 328-332


    Publication date :

    2000-02-17




    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English




    Inflatable Technology for Robotics

    Wu, J. / Jones, J. | NTRS | 2000


    Inflatable robotics for planetary applications

    Jones, J. A. / Wu, J. J. | NTRS | 2001



    Inflatable Reentry Technology

    Adami, M. / Hromadkova, A. / Giovangrossi, G. et al. | British Library Conference Proceedings | 2004


    Inflatable Habitats Technology Development

    Kennedy, Kriss J. | NTRS | 2000