Wheeled rovers are critical to exploration of the lunar surface, and loss of mobility actuators can have mission-ending consequences. NASA’s upcoming Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) has a four-wheeled active suspension, which gives it flexible extreme terrain mobility at the cost of an increased number of mobility actuators and potentially a higher mobility cost due to actuator loss than might occur on a similar six-wheeled rover. Impact varies greatly by both the affected joint and its failure state, and that in some cases modification of driving strategy may be able to partially mitigate mobility impact.
Assessing Impact of Joint Actuator Failure on Lunar Rover Mobility
Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC) ; 2022 ; Laurel, MD, US
Conference paper
No indication
English
terramechanics , rover , fault , slip , wheel , Mechanical Engineering , failure
Development of Lunar Rover Testbed and Non-Linear Low Impact Joint Actuator
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2002
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