Modeling And Simulation Of Longitudinal Dynamics For The Lunar Rover

A lunar rover is a mobile robot used for topography mapping on themoon’s rough terrain, and its development involves various subjects, suchas artificial intelligence, autocontrol, mechanics, information technologyand computer science, etc. The locomotion system is the fundamentalsubsystem of lunar rover; its performance and stability are the keyelements to the success of the lunar probe program.In this paper, a study on the motion performance of the lunar roverin such complicated situation as on the moon’s terrain is carried out indetails. Firstly, a wheel-soil interaction model is established based on thetraditional theory of terramechanics and a single-wheel model is thendeveloped from a wheel-soil interaction model, a wheel model and amotor model. The validity of this single-wheel model is confirmed bybench-scale experiments which are performed by relevant researchinstitutes.Secondly, the dynamic equations of lunar rover are derived and awhole vehicle dynamics model is developed on the basis of thesingle-wheel model. Considering the particularity of the soft soil, the multipass subsystem is added to simulate the sinkage specialty on themoon.Finally, the extreme conditions of the lunar rover are analyzed andcomputer simulations are performed to test its dynamic features in sometypical prescribed spectrums. The numerical predictions show the lunarrover can operate under various typical conditions successfully and it hasa good dynamic performance on the moon, however, the terrainpassability of the lunar rover in light gravity are distinguished from thosein heavy gravity on the earth.