A Reconfigurable Planetary Rover for Increased Traversability

Reconfigurable wheel-on-leg rovers provide an effective solution for addressing traversability problems in Martian analogue environments. Soft soil and step obstacles larger than a rover's wheel diameter are significant impediments that can be more easily overcome with an actively articulated mobility system compared to a conventional passive mobility system. The MAMMOTH (Mars Analogue Multi MOde Traverse Hybrid) rover is a wheel-on-leg platform developed at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics (ACFR) at the University of Sydney. To be presented is the design of the MAMMOTH rover, an overview of the system's model-based software framework, the kinematic and stability model of the platform and preliminary work on motion planning considering reconfigurability. Additionally, experimental results validating the kinematic and stability models, and summaries of semi-autonomous missions that demonstrate the operational capabilities of the platform will be presented.