352results about "Extraterrestrial cars" patented technology

A vehicle includes a chassis and a plurality of wheel assemblies articulated with the chassis, each of the plurality of wheel assemblies comprising a rotatable wheel spaced away from the chassis. A vehicle includes a chassis and an articulated suspension system mounted to the chassis. A method includes comprising articulating at least one of a plurality of wheel assemblies with a chassis, each of the wheel assemblies including a rotatable wheel spaced apart from the chassis. A vehicle includes a chassis and articulatable means for rolling the chassis along a path.

The invention provides a hevapod universal walking multifunctional moonshot robot which comprises two parts of a mechanical structure and a control system; the mechanical structure is composed of a round objective platform and six multi free-degree arms which are evenly distributed according to a regularhexagon, thus, on the basis, various of required functional modules are loaded on the round objective platform so as to expand the function; the control system adopts an AVR singlechip structure to combine the functional modules and the mechanical structure together so as to form a moonshot robot system. The robot has two walking modes of leg-type crawling and wheel type crawling, and has the universal walking function; and the walking efficiency is improved obviously and the scope of application is wider. Meanwhile, the functions of self-adaption to topography, counterguard, path optimization process and grabbing by a mechanical arm, automatical fault distinguishing and repairing and the like are increased newly on the basis of the existing functions; and the invention can be applied to the field of moonshot and the like, and the civil fileds such as ground location, rescuing, transportation and the like.

The invention provides a novel, low-cost, spin-stabilized lander architecture capable (with appropriate system scaling tailored to the attributes of the target) of performing a soft-landing on a solar-system body such as Earth's Moon, Mars, Venus, the moons of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, selected near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, comets and Kuiper belt objects and even large human-made objects, and also moving about on the surface of the target solar-system body after the initial landing in movement akin to hopping.

A space transportation propellant depot has multiple locations, sources and capabilities. Maximizing known mature technologies coupled with realistic industrial techniques results in the incremental development of a propellant source on the moon. Propellant depots are economically driven locations with defined services, sources of propellant and innovation in the pursuit of transportation related commerce as mankind explores for resources beyond Earth.

A 6-wheel symmetrical active suspension structure for the moon exploration car is composed of car body, car body balancing mechanism in the car body, and two suspension sets pivoted to both sides of said car body and to said balancing mechanism. Its 6 wheels are individually driven and can be drawn in car body. Its front 2 wheels and back two wheels can be individual steered. It can move up or down the slope and leap over obstacle or ditch.

The invention provides a manned lunar rover. The manned lunar rover comprises a vehicle chassis system, four driving systems and a casing which is provided with wire mesh tires; the four driving systems are uniformly distributed on the periphery of the vehicle chassis system; every driving system is in linkage connection with a steering system; the steering systems comprise steering shafts; one ends of the steering shafts are in linkage connection with driving shafts; the other ends of the steering shafts and power output ends of steering motors are fixed through speed reducers; every steering system is connected with the vehicle chassis system through a suspension system. The manned lunar rover has strong driving capability adapting to bad road conditions and can meet the requirements of special road conditions and special environments on the surface of the moon.

An unmanned robotic vehicle is capable of sensing an environment at a location remote from the immediate area of the vehicle frame. The unmanned robotic vehicle includes a retractable appendage with a sensing element. The sensing element can include a camera, chemical sensor, optical sensor, force sensor, or the like.

A probe vehicle wheel with variable diameter elastically capable of automatic extension relates to a probe car wheel. The invention solves the problem that the existing lunar vehicle has bad obstacle ability when meeting high barriers and traveling on loose and soft lunar slope as the wheel of the existing lunar vehicle is rigid wheel and the devices inside the wheel are impacted due to collision between the wheel and hard object. A driving flange is connected with the output end of a speed reducer in a driving device, the driving flange is hinged with a plurality of support bars, the other end of the support bar is hinged with a slide bar, one end of the slide bar is fixedly connected with the inside wall of a flange sheet, the other end of the slide bar is sleeved with a spring and is inserted in a corresponding sliding chute together with the spring, the slide bar can radially slide along the sliding chute, one end of the spring is fixedly connected with the slide bar, the other end of the spring is fixedly connected with the bottom of the sliding chute, a limited block is installed inside the sliding chute and positioned outside the spring, and a plurality of tooth sheets are uniformly distributed on the flange and are fixedly connected with the flange. In the invention, the wheel diameter can be adjusted automatically according to topographic condition, thereby improving wheel traveling ability and reducing the impact of wheel for the devices inside.

A robot is obtained having various functions that are demanded for planetary landing vehicles, extreme operations robots or the like, in particular to provide a leg structure for a robot that is capable of getting up itself when overturned, facilitating take-off and landing on uneven ground, and that has a walking function and that has a hand function capable of three-dimensional operation. A robot comprises a main robot body and at least three legs mounted on this main body for enabling three-dimensional movement of the main robot body such as a self-erecting action or walking action; each leg is constituted by a multi-joint arm having a plurality of said offset rotary joints linked together and has a ground-engaging member mounted at the leading end of the arm, so that each leg is capable of independently controlled three-dimensional movement and drive.

A vehicle including a body and three legs. Each leg includes a proximal end coupled to the body, a distal end opposite the proximal end, and an actuator. Each actuator imparts enough acceleration to the vehicle along an axis of the leg to cause the distal end of the leg to leave a surface upon which it rests. Thus, the robot can pivot around one leg when the actuator of another leg imparts an acceleration. One actuator may also cause two legs to leave the surface. Moreover, the actuators may be spring biased into a retracted position. Further, the body may be a Platonic solid and the axes of the lags may pass through the vehicle's center of gravity. Of course, the body could be a sphere while the vehicle could be a planetary robot or a toy. Methods of traversing a surface are also provided.

The invention discloses a walking moon soft landing mechanism. The walking moon soft landing mechanism comprises a plurality of landing buffering legs evenly installed on the side wall of a landing device. Each landing buffering leg comprises a main buffering supporting column assembly, two auxiliary buffering supporting column assemblies symmetrically installed on the two sides of the main buffering supporting column assembly, a foot pad and a connecting plate. Each main buffering supporting column assembly and each auxiliary buffering supporting column assembly each comprise a buffering supporting column, a sliding block, a sliding rail, a lead screw and a driving transmission part. Buffering materials are installed inside each buffering supporting column, and each buffering supporting column is used for being compressed and stretched in a bidirectional mode. Each sliding block is hinged to the upper end of the corresponding buffering supporting column. Each sliding rail is fixed to the side wall of the landing device. Each sliding block is connected to the corresponding sliding rail in a slideable mode. One end of each lead screw is connected with the corresponding sliding block. Each driving transmission part is connected with the other end of the corresponding lead screw. Each sliding block is driven by the corresponding lead screw to move on the corresponding sliding rail to unfold or fold the corresponding landing buffering leg. The lower end of the buffering supporting column of each main buffering supporting column assembly and the lower ends of the buffering supporting columns of the corresponding auxiliary buffering supporting column assemblies are jointly hinged to the corresponding connecting plate. Each connecting plate is connected with the corresponding foot pad through a spherical hinge.

The present invention is one four wheel or six wheel differential torsion bar spring vehicle suspension mechanism, which consists of a vehicle body, a four wheel or six wheel independent suspension mechanism, a differential device inside the vehicle body. The independent suspension mechanism has two independent two or three wheel suspension mechanism units separately on two sides of the vehicle body, and the differential device is fixed to these two suspension mechanism units. The present invention has the advantages of less wheels, light weight, low power consumption and easy control, and may be used in lunar rover and planet rover as well as all terrain vehicle and toy vehicle.

The invention discloses a buffer landing leg for a planet detector, which comprises an outer cylinder, an inner cylinder and a foot cushion, wherein a guide rail is arranged on the inner wall of the outer cylinder, a rotating motor is arranged at the upper end of the inner cylinder, an output rotating shaft of the rotating motor is fixedly connected with the inner cylinder, a compression spring is arranged on the upper end of the rotating motor, the upper end of the compression spring is in contact with the top of the outer cylinder, two sides of the rotating motor are also provided with guide wheels matched with the guide rail; and the foot cushion is arranged at the lower end of the outer cylinder, helical convex teeth are arranged on the outer peripheral surface of the inner cylinder, and a pawl matched with the helical convex teeth is arranged on the outer cylinder and compressed in the helical convex teeth through an external elastic member. The invention has the advantages of no interference in processes of installation and movement of the landing leg mechanism, good structural rigidity, lighter mass, simple structure, convenience of processing, long service life, high reliability and capability of absorbing higher impact energy and realizing self-repairing function of buffer postures.

A hub drive includes an in-hub motor and a shifting in-hub transmission coupled with the motor. A hub drive wheel assembly includes a wheel comprising a hub, an in-hub motor, and a shifting in-hub transmission having an input attached to the motor and an output attached to the wheel. A vehicle includes a chassis, a wheel comprising a hub, an in-hub motor, and a shifting in-hub transmission having an input attached to the motor and an output attached to the wheel for rotating the wheel with respect to the chassis. A method includes providing a shifting transmission and a motor coupled with the transmission in a hub of a wheel, providing electrical power to the motor, and rotating the motor with the electrical power. The method further includes rotating the transmission with the motor and rotating the wheel with the transmission.

A hub drive includes an in-hub motor and a shifting in-hub transmission coupled with the motor. A hub drive wheel assembly includes a wheel comprising a hub, an in-hub motor, and a shifting in-hub transmission having an input attached to the motor and an output attached to the wheel. A vehicle includes a chassis, a wheel comprising a hub, an in-hub motor, and a shifting in-hub transmission having an input attached to the motor and an output attached to the wheel for rotating the wheel with respect to the chassis. A method includes providing a shifting transmission and a motor coupled with the transmission in a hub of a wheel, providing electrical power to the motor, and rotating the motor with the electrical power. The method further includes rotating the transmission with the motor and rotating the wheel with the transmission.

The invention relates to the technical field of robots and discloses a spherical robot and a control method. The spherical robot comprises a spherical shell body, a spherical shell body driving mechanism and a camera assembly. The spherical shell body driving mechanism is installed in the spherical shell body so as to drive the spherical shell body to rotate around the sphere center of the spherical shell body. The spherical robot further comprises a head shell body, the camera assembly is installed in the head shell body, and the head shell body is located on the outer side of the spherical shell body, capable of sliding along the outer surface of the spherical shell body and provided with a first magnetic component. The spherical shell body driving mechanism is provided with a second magnetic component, and the first magnetic component is in magnetic connection with the second magnetic component. Moreover, the gravity center of a module formed by the spherical shell body driving mechanism, the head shell body and the camera assembly is lower than the sphere center of the spherical shell body in the vertical direction. The cameral assembly of the spherical robot is arranged outside the spherical shell body, capable of moving along with the spherical shell body and rotating relative to the spherical shell body, simple in structure, flexible and reliable in movement and good in image recording effect.

The invention belongs to a reactive suspension system, and more particularly relates to a reactive suspension system which can be folded and unfolded and actively adjusted and solves the technical problems of having complex structure, poor stability and not being extensible of the reactive suspension system. The reactive suspension system comprises a front bodywork, a rear bodywork, a bodywork folding and unfolding mechanism, two lateral reactive suspension groups and a transverse reactive suspension group. The two lateral reactive suspension groups are respectively articulated at the left side and the right side of the front bodywork, and can freely rotate in a certain range at the side of the bodywork; and the rear bodywork is articulated with the front bodywork at the transverse surface by the bodywork folding and unfolding mechanism, and can freely rotate in a certain range in the transverse direction of the bodywork to form a transverse reactive suspension. Two upright rods of the two lateral reactive suspension groups are always vertical to the horizontal plane of the bodywork and face upwards in any circumstances, thus ensuring the steering axis of wheels is superpositioned with the earthing contact of the wheels, and reducing the steering resistance while ensuring the steering accuracy; simultaneously, the normal line of ground bracing force borne by the two wheels passes through the center of a hinge, thus avoiding a bar system from bearing additional torque, and being capable of greatly reducing the weight of the parts.

The invention relates to a buffering landing leg of a reusable launch vehicle and a buffering method of the buffering landing leg, and belongs to the technical field of landing legs. The buffering landing leg comprises an outer sleeve (5), an inner lining cylinder (3), a concave type cylinder (7), a rotating motor (1), a pushing rod (4), a floating piston (8), a piston cylinder (12), a gasket (10), a honeycomb-like buffering material (11), a spherical hinge (13), a foot pad (14) and an end cover (9). The buffering landing leg is characterized by combining three buffering modes which are the oil buffering mode, the damping rubber buffering mode and the honeycomb-like buffering mode, and multi-level buffering can be conducted. The buffering landing leg can adapt to different initial landing situations and can be retracted and released automatically, and manual ground operation is not needed.

The invention relates to a lunar vehicle, which comprises four wheel arms and wheel mechanisms which have the same allocation. The lower part of the vehicle body (9) is provided with four wheel arms. A movable parallelogrammic articulated mechanism is formed from upper long rods, lower long rods (4) and curved bars (5) at the two ends thereof, extension frames and lifting turbine worm reducers (11) of the four wheel arms. The inside of a hole on the upper part of the vehicle body is provided with a hooking gun (17). The lower end of the hooking gun (17) is connected with one end of a stay wire (21). The other end of the stay wire (21) is wound on a retraction pulley (18). The inside of an annular groove (20) arranged on the upper surface of the vehicle is an enlarged annular orbit (25). The lower parts on the two sides of a wind sock (22) are fixed on two support rods (23) respectively. The lunar vehicle utilizes a driving profiling mechanism of a traveling system to travel smoothly on a rampway, and is provided with an emergency starting climbing mechanism to climb over a barrier and a kite mechanism so that the lunar vehicle of the invention travels in the wind to save energy and working hours.

A vehicle including a body and three legs. Each leg includes a proximal end coupled to the body, a distal end opposite the proximal end, and an actuator. Each actuator imparts enough acceleration to the vehicle along an axis of the leg to cause the distal end of the leg to leave a surface upon which it rests. Thus, the robot can pivot around one leg when the actuator of another leg imparts an acceleration. One actuator may also cause two legs to leave the surface. Moreover, the actuators may be spring biased into a retracted position. Further, the body may be a Platonic solid and the axes of the lags may pass through the vehicle's center of gravity. Of course, the body could be a sphere while the vehicle could be a planetary robot or a toy. Methods of traversing a surface are also provided.

The invention provides a multifunctional manned lunar vehicle which has three probe modes, namely an astronaut driving mode, an auto inspecting probe mode and a robot driving probe mode. A chassis of the manned lunar vehicle is of a two-section structure capable of being assembled freely and capable of being assembled and disassembled as needed. A center computer, antenna equipment, a passenger station part and other equipment are installed on the chassis, moon surface sample collecting and analyzing equipment is further installed on the chassis and mainly comprises a binocular vision system, mechanical arms and a moon surface sample analyzing instrument. On the surface of the moon, the collected moon surface samples are sent into the moon surface sample analyzing instrument through the coordinate operation of the binocular vision system and the two mechanical arms and are directly probed, and then the analysis data are sent to the earth through the antenna equipment. The multifunctional manned lunar vehicle is compact in structure, light in weight, integrated in function and comfortable to ride, meets the requirement for manned moon surface inspecting probing, and can achieve on-site probing.

The invention discloses a rocking arm rhombus four wheels moon vehicle shift system, including a rotary rhombus frame and a front, a rear ,a left and a right wheels with an independent drive system mounted on the frame, the front and the rear wheels are independently fixed on the frame via a front hanger system and a rear hanger system, and the left and the right wheels are independently fixed on the frame via a left hanger system and a right hanger system. The front hanger system and the rear hanger system all consists of a connection mechanism and a steering mechanism. The invent uses a novel type of four wheels three axial rhombus chassis with the advantages of compact structure, high lightness degree, low energy consumption ,big load capacity, good cross country characteristics, convenient posture adjustment, strong land suitability , smooth vehicle body posture and high reliability.

The invention discloses a lunar surface walking device for a lunar rover, and belongs to the technical field of aerospace and mechanical designs. The lunar surface walking device is characterized by being supported by a central bracket and controlled to perform jumping and wheel-type movement. During jumping work, a servo motor pulls a steel wire rope to drive a sliding block to slide towards the end of the central bracket; a jumping spring is stretched to fold telescopic folding legs; when reaching the end of the central bracket, the sliding block is hooked by a locking hook; when the servo motor is powered off, and the locking hook releases the sliding block, the jumping spring is quickly shortened, and the telescopic folding legs are unfolded quickly; and therefore, a reacting force of the ground to wheels makes the lunar rover jump. During wheel-type movement, the telescopic folding legs are unfolded; the wheels are turned to be moving postures under the adjustment of stepping motors; motors arranged in the wheels drive the lunar rover; and therefore, the lunar rover can adapt to a rugged road surface through suspension springs arranged on the legs. The lunar surface walking device for the lunar rover has the beneficial effects that: due to the two modes of jumping and wheel-type movement, the variety of moving modes of the lunar rover is increased; and the adaptability of the lunar rover to the ground is improved.

The invention discloses a motion control system for a four-wheel individual drive patrolling device and belongs to the field of mechanical structure design and automatic control. The system needs to adapt to complex and changeable terrain environments, drive performance and reliability need to be high, and the system can guarantee that an instrument in a carriage of the patrolling device can stably finish a detection task. The system comprises an upper computer and a lower computer, the upper computer is a PC, the lower computer is an industrial PC 104, and the upper computer communicates with the lower computer in a wireless manner. Each wheel of the patrolling device is internally provided with a drive motor and a steering motor, and the patrolling device can be made to steer at any radius. Every two motors are located in the corresponding wheel, sand is prevented from entering the corresponding wheel, the service life of the motors is prolonged, and the stability of the motors is improved. An embedded real-time system VxWorks is selected to be used as a control system to improve the instantaneity of the system, and a field bus CAN bus is selected to be used as a communication bus to improve the communication efficiency of the system.

The invention relates to a travelling and folding system of a moon rover, comprising a wheel driving unit, wheel steering units, a steering frame, a front rocker arm, a rover body, a rover body transmission shaft, a rear rocker arm, a middle rod and a swing rod; wherein the wheel driving unit is connected with wheel steering unit; two wheel steering units are fixed with the steering frame and the other steering unit is fixed with the swing rod; the steering frame is connected with the front rocker arm by a rotating shaft; the swing rod is connected with the middle rod by a rotating shaft; the middle rod is fixed with the rear rocker arm; the front rocker arm and the rear rocker arm are respectively connected with the rover body transmission shaft; the transmission shaft is connected with the rover body. The folding mode is simple, convenient and fast; the folding state is beautiful in appearance; the using amount of the motors is less, a steering motor is fully utilized, only two swing motors are really designed for the folding function and the other six steering motors also can be used for normal travelling and turning; the folding ratio is high, namely 214 percent, thus effectively shortening the initial placement volume of the moon rover.

The invention discloses a wheeled lunar vehicle driving control method based on slip ratio adjustment, which includes the steps: working condition selection and control objective determination; wheel slip ratio estimation; establishment of a lunar vehicle system model; and calculation of wheel distributed moment Ti. Driving conditions of a lunar vehicle include an accelerating or decelerating condition of a vehicle body and a uniform-speed driving condition of the vehicle body, wherein when the vehicle body is under the accelerating or decelerating condition, the slip ratio of each wheel is controlled within a high driving efficiency range, and the high driving efficiency of the wheels can be guaranteed; and when the vehicle body is under the uniform-speed driving condition, the average value of the slip ratio of all the wheels serves as a control objective, so that the problems of singleness of the control objective, energy consumption increase caused by too high or too low single wheel slip ratio, poor trafficability variation and the like can be avoided. By means of a sliding mode variable structure control algorithm, solving is simple, the calculated quantity is small, and the system is guaranteed to have excellent robustness, so that the lunar vehicle can more coordinately move in the rugged environment.

The invention relates to a novel Mars rover which is mainly used to solve the problem that after the wheel surface is damaged, there is no way to repair and adjust an opening angle mechanism to make the Mars rover complete a series of movements. According to the novel Mars rover, wheels and master arm suspensions are symmetrically distributed on both sides of a vehicle main body, and each wheel isformed by an axle, a base and wheel pieces. The wheel pieces are spliced one by one and made of spaceflight rubber. If some wheel pieces are abraded, the damaged wheel pieces can be dismantled in a splicing mode and replaced with new ones. Each master arm suspension is composed of a main rocker arm and an auxiliary rocker arm on the two sides and a differential mechanism. The main rocker arm andthe auxiliary rocker arm are hinged to each other, a clutch is added at the position of a hinged point, the main rocker arm is formed by a main rocker arm long arm and a main rocker arm short arm, andan opening angle adjusting mechanism is arranged between the main rocker arm long arm and the main rocker arm short arm. When a clutch does not work or in a locked state, the folding and unfolding, wriggle and wheel lifting movements of the Mars rover are controlled by adjusting the opening angle mechanism. The novel Mars rover is used for scientific detection on the surface of Mars.

A wheel for the wheel-jaw type planet prospecting robot is composed of a drive and walk unit and a steering unit. A method for linking said two units with each other is also disclosed. Its advantage is high power to grasp ground and cross over the obstacles.

The invention relates to a wheel-legged detector for planet surface detection, comprising a body frame portion, a walking portion, a bouncing power releasing portion and a bouncing executing portion, wherein the walking portion is fixedly connected to a right walking motor support plate and a left walking motor support plate of the body frame portion through bolts; the bouncing power releasing portion is fixedly connected on a rear diaphragm pawl sleeve support and a front diaphragm of the body frame portion through bolts; and the bouncing executing portion passes through a left plate and a right plate of the body frame portion to be positioned through a leg connection shaft of the bouncing executing portion. According to the invention, the wheel-legged detector has simple structure, stable performances and strong adaptive capacity to environment and has the wheeled walking capability; and for the inherent defects of wheeled movement of the existing planet detector, the wheel-legged detector has the bouncing function based on the advantages of the wheeled movement manner, can cross obstacles many times higher than the detector itself and has superior application value and broad application prospects on the technical field of deep space detectors.