Design of shoe plate for small hopping rover on loose soil

Hopping rover is one of solution for locomotion on loose and rocky terrain on the moon and planetary surface. The hopping rover jumps over an obstacles. Since the height of hopping is equal to the height which the rover can get over, the traversability of rover becomes higher. In order to design a push plate with a small amount of slip on the granular media for a stable and efficient hopping, it is necessary to know the reaction force received from the ground. In this paper, we describe the force estimation method of shoe plate design of jump rover based on Resistive Force Theory and calculate the reaction force when pressing the shoe plate and find of the shape that is suitable for hopping. The shoe plate is manufactured with a 3D printer, and the pressing test result and the calculation result are compared. Finally, we verify the effectiveness including the hopping motion of the rover, using the dynamics simulator on the moon gravity.