Experimental Parametric Analysis of iRings Lunar Wheel Design
- Paper number
IAC-11,A3,2.P,14,x10606
- Author
Mr. Michele Faragalli, Neptec Design Group, Canada
- Coauthor
Mr. Daniel Oyama, Canada
- Coauthor
Prof. Peter Radziszewski, McGill University, Canada
- Coauthor
Dr. Damiano Pasini, McGill University, Canada
- Year
2011
- Abstract
The wire-mesh compliant wheel design was identified as the best choice for the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV), however, future lunar missions and vehicles will impose more severe and extensive requirements on performance and life. Vehicles will travel further on the lunar surface, explore permanently shadowed craters, and perform a variety of tasks such as transport sensitive payloads, excavate regolith, and allow for both unmanned and manned operation. A novel class of compliant non-pneumatic, non-rubber wheels have been developed in partnership between McGill University, the Canadian Space Agency, and Neptec Design Group. These wheels, dubbed iRings, achieve compliance through the reorganization of the particulate fill under the applied load, unlike existing compliant wheels which require material elastic deformation [1]. This deformation mechanism gives iRings the advantage of achieving superior trafficability and terrainability performance over elastically compliant wheels. Nonetheless, the iRings wheels have several notable disadvantages such as increased mass, reduced reliability, and poor rolling efficiency [2]. This work aims at parameterizing the iRings wheels into a subset of design variables which describe the configuration of the wheel. A parametric analysis was conducted to study the effects of varying the design parameters of the wheel on a set of multidisciplinary performance metrics. The analysis was conducted experimentally, using a 60cm diameter wheel on a single wheel test bed and on a 200kg prototype lunar rover. Surrogate models were built to describe the relationship between the design variables and performance metrics. Computationally expensive and inaccurate wheel-soil interaction models are thus avoided. A multi-objective optimization algorithm is then used along with the surrogate models to determine the optimal set of design parameters which satisfy the performance objectives. Finally, an optimal wheel is built and tested to demonstrate the improved performance of the wheel. [1] Asnani, V., Delap, D., Creager, C. (2009). “The development of wheels for the Lunar Roving Vehicle”, Journal of Terramechanics, Vol. 46, pp.89-103. [2] Radziszewski, P., Martins, S., Faragalli, M., Kaveh-Moghaddam, N., Oyama, D., Briend, R., Prahacs, C., Ouellette, S., Pasini, D., Thomson, V., Lowther, D., Farhat, M., Jones, B., (2010). “iRings – Development of a Wheel Prototype Concept for Lunar Mobility”, Proceedings of 15th CASI-Astro conference, May 4th – May 6th, Toronto, Canada.
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
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