An Overview of Wind-Driven Rovers for Planetary Exploration

Hajos, Gregory A.; Jones, Jack A.; Behar, A.; Dodd, Micheal

doi:10.2514/6.2005-244

Cited by 48 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…These have been nicknamed "tumbleweed" robots due to their similarities with the dry plant that rolls with the wind and disperses its seeds. These designs have been extensively studied for space exploration vehicles by NASA [10,11] and the European Space Agency [8] because of the obvious benefit of reduced fuel consumption for a wide area of travel. Some of the newer tumbleweed designs include methods for controlling direction, such as Thistle [8] which has a method for avoiding obstacles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Fabrication and Control of Spherobot: A Spherical Mobile Robot

Tomik

Nudehi

Flynn

et al. 2012

J Intell Robot Syst

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In the literature, Spherobot refers to a mobile robot with a spherical exo-skeleton and a propulsion mechanism that uses unbalance masses in a tetrahedral arrangement. A modified design of Spherobot, that is better suited to fabrication, is presented in this paper. The modified propulsion mechanism and other components of the design are discussed in detail to highlight the challenges of fabrication. An adaptive estimation and control algorithm used for position control of the unbalance masses and a steering algorithm used for motion control of Spherobot are also discussed. Experimental results of the Spherobot navigating a hallway with bends is presented.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Design, Fabrication and Control of Spherobot: A Spherical Mobile Robot

Tomik

Nudehi

Flynn

et al. 2012

J Intell Robot Syst

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“…Meanwhile, the wind-driven spherical robots, for example JPL tumbleweed rover and the Tumble Cup, were tested in the Antarctic environment. Experiments show that the motion is strongly episodic, once the rover gets moving quickly for a while, then stopping or controlling the rover's direction was difficult [5,6]. Furthermore, the flying robot and ice surface mobile robot were also developed for the Antarctic exploration [7][8][9][10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aerodynamic performance of multifunctional wind energy unit for long distance polar rover

Liu

Hua

Jiang

et al. 2014

2014 IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Automation

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The limited energy stored in the polar rover greatly restricts the polar rover to execute a long distance exploration. For making full use of the Antarctic renewable wind energy, a long distance polar rover installed a multifunctional wind energy unit is introduced in this paper. The multifunctional wind energy unit combines the functions of wind driving and wind power generation, which can convert the force acting on the unit generated by the wind energy into the rover's driving force and the wind power at the same time. Based on the theory of aerodynamics, the quantitative relations among thrust force, torque, free stream velocity and blade parameters are established. Meanwhile, the mathematical expression between the thrust coefficient, power coefficient and attack angle and wind direction angle is deduced respectively. The research results in this paper provide the mechanical structure and theoretical reference for the unmanned polar rover to convert the Antarctic renewable wind energy into its own driving power.

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“…But few researchers study on the passive driving robot. The 'Tumbleweed Rover' developed by NASA [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] was completely wind-driven, and its design is mimicking a kind of plant called tumbleweed. However, its movement, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A deformable spherical planet exploration robot

et al. 2013

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In this paper, a deformable spherical planet exploration robot has been introduced to achieve the task of environmental detection in outer space or extreme conditions. The robot imitates the morphology structure and motion mechanism of tumbleweeds. The robot is wind-driven. It consists of an axle, a spherical steel skeleton and twelve airbags. The axle is designed as two parts. The robot contracts by contracting the two-part axle. The spherical robot installs solar panels to provide energy for its control system.

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An Overview of Wind-Driven Rovers for Planetary Exploration

Cited by 48 publications

References 10 publications

Design, Fabrication and Control of Spherobot: A Spherical Mobile Robot

Design, Fabrication and Control of Spherobot: A Spherical Mobile Robot

Aerodynamic performance of multifunctional wind energy unit for long distance polar rover

A deformable spherical planet exploration robot

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