Static Balancing of Articulated Wheeled Vehicles by Parallelogram- and Spring- based Compensation

Articulated Wheeled Vehicles (AWVs) offer superior uneven terrain traversal capabilities by virtue of the superior reconfigurability within their articulated structure. However, this capability can be realized only at the price of increased actuation-based equilibration, oftentimes solely to support the gravitational loading. Hence, the simultaneous reduction of the overall actuation remains one of the critical challenges in such AWVs. In this chapter, we address the static balancing of six degree-of-freedom articulated wheeled vehicles with multiple leg-wheel subsystem. Static balancing is defined as a set of conditions on dimensional and inertial parameters of articulated vehicle components which ensure that the weight of the links and platform does not produce any torque/force at the actuators for any configuration of vehicle. In this study, elastic elements such as springs are employed in conjunction with parallelogram linkages to achieve the static balancing. The underlying principle is to realize an overall articulated system whose total potential energy including the elastic potential energy stored in springs and gravitational potential energy becomes constant.