SpaceBot Rover - Chassis Suspension and Mobility

Abstract :

This presentation describes the development and test of the mobile manipulation platform Artemis intended for a terrestrial robotic competition. While current space missions are planned to minimize complex manipulation tasks, plans for future space missions go beyond these restrictions. Infrastructure deployment, human-robot cooperative missions and complex sample collection require increasingly complex manipulation capabilities. To meet this need the Spacebot Cup consists of several complex manipulation tasks in unstructured terrain. These requirements were the main design driver for the presented system. The presented rover consists of a 3-Boogie-Chasis designed to increase the maximum stepping size, flexible rubber wheels to increase the maximal climbing inclination on loose surfaces and a small six degree of freedom manipulator to handle objects within the competition. The iterative simulation and experiment process used to develop the flexible rubber wheels is presented. Furthermore experiments are presented which allow a performance