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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2023
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9944875 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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