Dynamical Modeling of a Golden Wheel Spider-Inspired Rolling Robot for Planetary Exploration

Abstract

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-3710.vid Bioinspired robots are becoming more common within the robotics industry. Through evolution, organisms have become incredibly efficient at and well suited to certain sets of tasks. This paper is exploring the development of a bioinspired rolling robot called the Spider Rolling Robot (SRR). The goal of our research is to create an autonomous robot capable of rolling and jumping for planetary exploration. Many different prototypes have been built to date testing various rolling designs. A mathematical dynamic model has been developed to simulate the performance of one of our prototypes in MATLAB under different conditions. Currently, the developed mathematical model can be used for vibrational testing, and the contact modeling will be integrated in the next step. Multiple CoppeliaSim models have been built to verify the model behaviors and to explore new designs. The goal of our research is to create an autonomous robot capable of rolling and jumping for planetary exploration.