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Improving rover mobility through traction control: simulating rovers on the Moon

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Abstract

This paper shows the performance of various traction control strategies that aim to minimize slippage and wheel fighting by properly adjusting the velocity of each traction wheel in a planetary rover. These strategies are validated through simulations performed in ANVEL (Quantum Signal LLC) and using two rovers currently employed by NASA. These experiments use similar features to those that a planetary rover would face on the Moon such as terrain geomorphology and lunar gravity. After running those experiments, the following conclusions were drawn: (1) when no traction control is considered, results show the rover gets entrapped or makes a shorter progress than when traction control is applied; (2) the proposed traction controllers demonstrate a proper balance between slip-compensation (lowest mean slip) and reduction of wheel fighting effects (less aggressive control actions); (3) after considering two different planetary rovers, it is observed that the mechanical configuration effects slip reduction. These contributions can also be observed in the accompanying videos.

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Acknowledgements

The research described in this publication was carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) and ProtoInnovations (Pittsburgh, PA), under the STTR Contract NNX15CA25C funded by NASA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA

    Ramon Gonzalez & Karl Iagnemma

  2. robonity: innovation-driven startup, 5 Extremadura Street, 04740, Roquetas de Mar, Almería, Spain

    Ramon Gonzalez

  3. ProtoInnovations LLC, 100 43rd Street, Pittsburgh, PA, 15201, USA

    Dimi Apostolopoulos

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  1. Ramon Gonzalez
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  2. Dimi Apostolopoulos
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  3. Karl Iagnemma
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Correspondence to Ramon Gonzalez.

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Gonzalez, R., Apostolopoulos, D. & Iagnemma, K. Improving rover mobility through traction control: simulating rovers on the Moon. Auton Robot 43, 1977–1988 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-019-09846-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-019-09846-3

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