A lunar rover leg: optimal design of a decoupling joint

AMBU, RITA;Falchi C;MANUELLO BERTETTO, ANDREA

2010-01-01

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Abstract

The development of vehicles for the exploration in the lunar environment is a topic of great interest. In particular, recently, there has been a growing attention toward the lunar rovers for working missions since the building of lunar bases is a primary objective for the lunar exploration. However, these vehicles have peculiar requirements to be taken into account in the design of each component. In this paper a particular component of a worker rover, developed as a collaboration between two academic institutions, has been designed for an optimal functionality. Each leg of this rover comprises a mechanism for lifting weights and the component considered, a decoupling joint, is a part of this mechanism. The design optimization was performed by means of parametric modelling and numerical simulations