Tracker–Bogie: A Mobile Mechanism With Integrated Half Rocker–Bogie and Track Mechanism

The tracker–bogie mechanism represents an integrated design, the benefits of both rocker–bogie and conventional tracks. The rocker–bogie mechanism, renowned for its stability, rendering it adept at traversing various ground shapes with its structure. The track mechanism excels in terrainability on deformable terrains. When both mechanisms are integrated, their benefits converge to produce compounded advantages with a synergistic effect that is reducing number of the actuator. By utilizing the track to the rocker–bogie mechanism, resulting in dynamic changes in track tension during obstacle negotiation. An adaptive track-tension system is devised that handle the tension problem. During the prototyping phase, an important task is how to define the bogie's rotation center relative to the rocker. Through the simulation result, the tracker–bogie reduces noncontinuity in step obstacles, which is accomplished through combining both mechanisms and adaptive track tensioner. As the result of experiment, the tracker–bogie can overcome obstacles that are 71.43% higher than that of the normal track. The trajectory linearity is measured using the root-mean-squared error (RMSE) value. Compared with the normal track mechanism, RMSE of the tracker–bogie decreases by as much as 45.73%. In the future, the tracker–bogie mechanism can be applied to all kinds of field robots for increasing the robot mobility.