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Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration

Exploring Mars is beneficial to increasing our knowledge, understanding the possibility of ancient microbial life there, and discovering new resources beyond the Earth to prepare for future human missions to Mars. To assist ambitious uncrewed missions to Mars, specific types of planetary rovers have...

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Autores principales: Chen, Guangming, Qiao, Long, Zhou, Zhenwen, Richter, Lutz, Ji, Aihong
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9944875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36810375
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010044
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author Chen, Guangming
Qiao, Long
Zhou, Zhenwen
Richter, Lutz
Ji, Aihong
author_facet Chen, Guangming
Qiao, Long
Zhou, Zhenwen
Richter, Lutz
Ji, Aihong
author_sort Chen, Guangming
collection PubMed
description Exploring Mars is beneficial to increasing our knowledge, understanding the possibility of ancient microbial life there, and discovering new resources beyond the Earth to prepare for future human missions to Mars. To assist ambitious uncrewed missions to Mars, specific types of planetary rovers have been developed for performing tasks on Mars’ surface. Due to the fact that the surface is composed of granular soils and rocks of various sizes, contemporary rovers can have difficulties in moving on soft soils and climbing over rocks. To overcome such difficulties, this research develops a quadruped creeping robot inspired by the locomotion characteristics of the desert lizard. This biomimetic robot features a flexible spine, which allows swinging movements during locomotion. The leg structure utilizes a four-linkage mechanism, which ensures a steady lifting motion. The foot consists of an active ankle and a round pad with four flexible toes that are effective in grasping soils and rocks. To determine robot motions, kinematic models relating to foot, leg, and spine are established. Moreover, the coordinated motions between the trunk spine and leg are numerically verified. In addition, the mobility on granular soils and rocky surface are experimentally demonstrated, which can imply that this biomimetic robot is suitable for Mars surface terrains.
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spelling pubmed-99448752023-02-23 Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration Chen, Guangming Qiao, Long Zhou, Zhenwen Richter, Lutz Ji, Aihong Biomimetics (Basel) Article Exploring Mars is beneficial to increasing our knowledge, understanding the possibility of ancient microbial life there, and discovering new resources beyond the Earth to prepare for future human missions to Mars. To assist ambitious uncrewed missions to Mars, specific types of planetary rovers have been developed for performing tasks on Mars’ surface. Due to the fact that the surface is composed of granular soils and rocks of various sizes, contemporary rovers can have difficulties in moving on soft soils and climbing over rocks. To overcome such difficulties, this research develops a quadruped creeping robot inspired by the locomotion characteristics of the desert lizard. This biomimetic robot features a flexible spine, which allows swinging movements during locomotion. The leg structure utilizes a four-linkage mechanism, which ensures a steady lifting motion. The foot consists of an active ankle and a round pad with four flexible toes that are effective in grasping soils and rocks. To determine robot motions, kinematic models relating to foot, leg, and spine are established. Moreover, the coordinated motions between the trunk spine and leg are numerically verified. In addition, the mobility on granular soils and rocky surface are experimentally demonstrated, which can imply that this biomimetic robot is suitable for Mars surface terrains. MDPI 2023-01-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9944875/ /pubmed/36810375 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010044 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Chen, Guangming
Qiao, Long
Zhou, Zhenwen
Richter, Lutz
Ji, Aihong
Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title_full Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title_fullStr Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title_full_unstemmed Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title_short Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
title_sort development of a lizard-inspired robot for mars surface exploration
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9944875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36810375
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics8010044
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