Structure Designing and Dynamic Model Establishing for Travel Mechanism of a Six Leg-wheels Lunar Rover

In future lunar exploration missions, rovers are required to traverse over rough terrain. In order to improve the ability of obstacle surmounting on lunar surface, this paper proposes a new-style travel mechanism for lunar rovers. This mechanism mainly consists of four main legs and two assistant legs. By establishing its dynamic model using the Lagrange's equations and making dynamic simulation, many references have been provided to the control system. Through analysis we found that the ability of obstacle surmounting and the stability of this new-style six leg-wheeled lunar rover have been improved.