Study on turn motion of child rovers of a reconfigurable planetary rover system

A reconfigurable planetary rover system (RPRS) is presented, including the parent body and some child robots. The child robot composed with the arm part and the wheel part has two moving modes: locomotion mode and manipulation mode. According to the mechanical characteristics, we proposed the two methods for the motion planning of swerving locomotion. The results of experiments showed that the robot can achieve turn during locomotion by adjusting the arm's attitude. But the child robot's radius of left-hand turning motion during locomotion is bigger much than the radius of right-hand turning motion during locomotion and the effect is not obvious. The method of spot turning is presented by use of the difference between radial frictional force and tangential frictional force of ground and direction wheel, which is important for robot for autonomous locomotion.