RUAG Space tests robotic vehicle for Mars
RUAG Space is currently testing an autonomous robotic vehicle for Mars. In the year 2018, as part of its ExoMars scientific mission, the European Space Agency (ESA) plans to land an autonomous robot of this type on the Red Planet to search for signs of life there.
RUAG Space is developing the locomotion system for the Mars rover. Moreover the company will deliver a high tech slip ring for the rover’s drilling unit and the control computer for the vehicle. This computer will be in charge of the communication and of the autonomous navigation on Mars.
It will manage the rover’s local processors which control the 18 motors of the locomotion system. This is already the second test ExoMars Rover test campaign in Zurich. In spring 2008 a first breadboard hat been tested. The second test vehicle features enhanced functionality and improvements based on the results of these first tests. To simulate the conditions that the rover will encounter when it has to travel over the surface of Mars, RUAG engineers have set up a 20-square-metre “sandpit” for the, filled with extremely fine-grained sand.
The rover needs to be easy to manoeuvre on soft ground. It is vital that the vehicle should not get bogged down, as – if the worst came to the worst – this could result in a premature end to the mission. With this in mind, the engineers have equipped the Mars robot with specially designed flexible wheels whose underside changes shape under the 250-kg weight of the vehicle, thus enlarging the supporting surface as much as possible. The wheel drive and steering systems are also designed for a maximum of flexibility. Each of the six wheels is driven by a separate motor and can be steered independently of the other wheels. The Mars robot has to travel across slopes and gradients, or when it is unable to circumnavigate an obstacle and has to climb over it.
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