Comparison of Suspension Systems and Chassis of Selected Mars Rovers Analogs with a Focus on Introduced Improvement

摘要

The article concludes with a thorough evaluation of an usefulness of suspension systems and chassis of Mars Rovers from Bialystok University of Technology and predictions for future Mars rover solutions. A development of technology and ever growing aspirations of mankind resulted in clear progress in the field of Mars exploration rovers. Competitions, involving analogs of Mars rovers, are increasingly more popular among academic societies. The main goal of mentioned initiatives, is to test possible solutions which, over time, may be used in rovers during extraterrestrial missions. The authors focused on a path of a Mars rover analogue development. In the first stage authors analyzed requirements of the University Rover Challenge organized by The Mars Society. Then the article concerns tasks that every modern Mars rover faces during its mission. Next authors considered Mars Rovers analogs designed and built in Faculty of Mechanical Engineering at Bialystok University of Technology. After application's considerations, authors focused on suspension systems analysis. A major part of the article is a thorough structural analysis of suspension and driving systems of analog Mars rovers build at Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Bialystok University of Technology [1]. Then there is an comparison of the Curiosity (fig. 1) rover suspension [2] and internal frame with #next Mars Rover (fig. 2).