Tracked or Wheeled?

How about this as an alternative to tracks or wheels. This little robot is being designed to be able to scale cliff faces.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20 ... urbot.html

It's climbing walls - doesn't that mean the wals have to be hard? Purgatory Dune was soft. Regarding that obstacle I would prefer tracks. But tracked the ways Lemur IIb can go are impossible.

It would be very interesting to have a team of robots - and Lemur IIb would be a member of that team.



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Perhaps a tracked vehicle could drive to the bottom of a cliff face and release a group of Lemur IIb's to climb up it to take a closer look.

If they were to take a tether with them and somehow anchor it at the top the tracked vehicle could winch itself up.

That's a very good thought. Perhaps that tether should be able to transmit data. Then at both of its ends there could ba an antenna and the robots could be equipped with very small antennas too. This way the data could be transmitted to the tracked robot (it might be a cancker-robot alternatively9 which then would transmit the data to Earth or to an orbiter. This would keep the energy requirements of the Lemurs low.

Perhaps they might be enabled to use there limbs to dig into soil where it is not to soft. This would be interesting for research - but it might enable them to hide within the soil at night to avoid temperature losses by radiating into the atmosphere.

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Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

Hello, Andy Hill,

regarding tracked - what about this alternative?

According to a german article under www.wissenschaft.de a team around Anette Hosoi at the MIT managed to develop a robot that creeps like a cochlea.

I don't remember if that has been already mentioned here - but to me the "concept" seems to be a modification of "tracked" that might be an improved adjustment to the dust at Mars and especially dunes like Purgatory Dune.

The actual robot weighs a few dozen gramms only and has five flat feet which move forward before the body moves forward. Instead of slime - used by cochleas - Laponit is used.

The robot managed to creep up vertical walls not only but under the top of the room also with "head" down - according to that german article.

Since cochleas seem to have no problems with dusts this might be a germ of an optimized approach perhaps - what do you think about it?

The article refers to the Physics of Fluids, Vol. 17, article 113101 - pof.aip.org .



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)

What about skids that can be rested on the ground before the place where the trouble occurs as well as in front and then having equipment that can press the wheels a bit more down to the ground?

Then there should be more traction so that a rover could get out better.



What about it?



Dipl.-Volkswirt (bdvb) Augustin (Political Economist)