Reinventing the wheel: a simulation-aided design of a soft, shape-adapting, lugged wheel for locomotion on sandy terrains
H. Shi, P. Klaassen, D. L. Schott, J. Jovanova
TL;DR
This paper presents a new soft, shape-changing wheel design for robots to move efficiently on sandy terrains using simulation.
Contribution
A co-simulation framework combining DEM and MBD is used to design a soft, shape-adapting wheel for sandy terrain locomotion.
Findings
Shape-adapting wheels improve performance on sandy terrains, including slopes and obstacles.
Soft wheels enhance obstacle climbing, while lugged configurations work best on loose, dry sand.
The DEM-MBD co-simulation reduces the need for physical prototyping in terrain locomotion design.
Abstract
Locomotion over granular terrain poses significant challenges for autonomous robotic systems, particularly in coastal regions characterized by loose, shifting sands. To optimize the locomotion on these challenging terrains, a simulation-aided design approach was used to develop a soft, shape-adapting, wheeled locomotion system. A co-simulation framework combining the discrete element method (DEM) and multibody dynamics (MBD) is employed to simulate the locomotion of a wheeled robot on varying sandy soils, covering both dry and wet sandy soil conditions. A shape-adapting wheel design is proposed, incorporating soft, inflatable elements that enable the wheel to transform between lugged and circular configurations. A discretized flexbody approach is adopted to model the interactions between the sandy soil and the soft, flexible bodies of the shape-adapting wheel design. Simulation results…
Genes, proteins, chemicals, diseases, species, mutations and cell lines named across the full text — each resolved to its canonical identifier and authoritative record.
Click any figure to enlarge with its caption.
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6
Figure 7
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10
Figure 11
Figure 12
Figure 13
Figure 14Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsSoil Mechanics and Vehicle Dynamics · Robotic Locomotion and Control · Innovations in Concrete and Construction Materials