Mechanical Design of the Articulated Suspension Exploratory Platform ASEP

The Articulated Suspension Exploratory Platform (ASEP) is developed in an effort to improve the characteristics and capabilities of the existing recently developed Surface Ground Mobility Platform SGMP. Special attention is placed on the design of the passive suspension mechanism in order for the platform to be suitable for operation in remote and challenging environments. To improve the capacity of the suspension and the overall quality, different designs have been analyzed based on a number of system requirements. The advantages of the final design are its linear motion, obstacle capacities, slope climbing and down-hill stability, as well as compact size and low cost.