This is a simulation to show the mechanism’s ability to maintain the wheel’s perpendicularity to the ground all throughout the arm’s travel. I just wanted to show it since this motion is not possible in the real vehicle yet… Also, I presented at the AIM 2010 IEEE/ASME Mechatronics conference last Friday, the presentation (with notes) can be found here.
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I like the idea of pivoting the base to achieve an additional degree of freedom with a relatively simple architecture. So it’s 5 degrees of freedom if I counted right.
Using the same design principal, in a larger scale what do you think would work better; linear actuators or servo articulated structure(your design)?
I’ve got four degrees of freedom: pivot of the full arm, the mechanism’s pivot in two dimensions, and the distance extension… In a larger scale linear actuators would be nice, but I’m not really sure where they would be able to fit, as far as I can imagine for now, rotary actuators are more compact 🙂
Yeah, it’s true. Your rotary actuator folds FLAT. That’s good especially if you have to fold your rover inside a limited payload bay. Maybe that’s the reason why CSA approached you. Now that they have the arm, they might need a foot, too. Go and help them out!