Locomotion Enhancement of a Mars Rover Using Statistic Estimation of Soil Type and Implementation of Reconfigurable Wheels

In this paper, a combination of statistic estimation of soil parameters and reconfigurable wheel is proposed to enhance the contact detection of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) on soft terrains according to statistic mode of inaccurate estimations in order to control equivalent radius of adjustable wheels. A resistive contact detector is implemented for segmented adjustable wheels to effectively estimate the properties of the soft terrain. This in turn helps us to improve locomotion of the UGV by finding the best configuration of adjustable wheels according to the terrain properties, contact geometry, UGV configuration, and measured slip ratio of the wheels. This process enhances the traction ability of the mars UGV (curiosity rover platform) in mars condition. The simulation of the wheel-soil contact is based on the soil contact model (SCM). MATLAB Simulink-coding is implemented to simulate simultaneous position control and radius adjustment to show the advantages of using the new sensor in the proposed adjustable wheel.