Walking Rover Trafficability - Presenting a Comprehensive Analysis and Prediction Tool

Although walking rovers perform well in rocky terrain, their performance over sands and other deformable materials has not been well studied. A better understanding of walking rover terramechanics will be essential if they are to be actually deployed on a space mission. This paper presents a comprehensive walking rover terramechanics model incorporating slip and sinkage dependencies. In addition to quantifying the leg / soil forces, the superior trafficability potential of a walking rover in deformable terrain is demonstrated, and a control approach is described which can reduce the risk inherent in traversing soils with unknown physical parameters. This work enhances the state of the art of legged rover trafficability and highlights some potential benefits from deploying micro-legged rovers for future surface exploration missions.