Rocker Bogie

Abstract: The Rocker-Bogie Mobility System was design to be used at slow speeds. It is capable of overcoming obstacles that are on the order of the size of the wheels. However, when surmounting a sizable obstacle, the vehicle motion effectively stops while the front wheel climbs the obstacle. When operating at slow speed, dynamic shocks are minimized when this happens. For many future planetary missions, rovers will have to operate at human level of speeds. Shocks resulting from the impact of the front wheel against an obstacle could damage the payload or the vehicle. This paper describes a method of driving a Rocker-Bogie vehicle so that it can effectively step over most obstacle rather than impacting over them. Most of the benefits of this method can be achieved without any modification to existing design only a change in control strategy. Some mechanical modification changes are suggested to gather the maximum benefits and to greatly increase the effective operational speed of future rovers. Keywords: rocker, bogie, mars-rover, suspension, obstacles