• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.413-422
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• 2012

In recent years, a number of missions have been planned and conducted worldwide on the planets such as Mars, which involves the unmanned robotic exploration with the use of rover. The rover is an important system for unmanned planetary exploration, performing the locomotion and sample collection and analysis at the exploration target of the planetary surface designated by the operator. This study investigates the development of mobility system for the rover ground model necessary to the planetary surface exploration for the benefit of future planetary exploration mission in Korea. First, the requirements for the rover mobility system are summarized and a new mechanism is proposed for a stable performance on rough terrain which consists of the passive suspension system with 8 wheeled double 4-bar linkage (DFBL), followed by the performance evaluation for the mechanism of the mobility system based on the shape design and simulation. The proposed mobility system DFBL was compared with the Rocker-Bogie suspension system of US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration and 8 wheeled mobility system CRAB8 developed in Switzerland, using the simulation to demonstrate the superiority with respect to the stability of locomotion. On the basis of the simulation results, a general system configuration was proposed and designed for the rover manufacture.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.237-250
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• 2021

A rover is a planetary surface exploration device designed to move across the ground on a planet or a planetary-like body. Exploration rovers are increasingly becoming a vital part of the search for scientific evidence and discoveries on a planetary satellite of the Sun, such as the Moon or Mars. Reliable behavior and predictable locomotion of a rover is important. Understanding soil behavior and its interaction with rover wheels-the terramechanics-is of great importance in rover exploration performance. Up to now, many researchers have adopted Bekker's semiempirical model to predict rover wheelsoil interaction, which is based on the assumption that soil is deformable when a pressure is applied to it. Despite this basic assumption of the model, the pressure-sinkage relation is not fully understood, and it continues to present challenges for rover designers. This article presents a new pressure-sinkage model based on dimensional analysis (DA) and results of bevameter tests. DA was applied to the test results in order to propose a new pressure-sinkage model by reducing physical quantitative parameters. As part of the work, a new bevameter was designed and built so that it could be successfully used to obtain a proper pressure-sinkage relation of Korean Lunar Soil Simulant (KLS-1). The new pressure-sinkage model was constructed by using three different sizes of flat plate diameters of the bevameter. The newly proposed model was compared successfully with other models for validation purposes.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.271-279
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• 2019

In extreme environment regions, unmanned rovers equipped with various sensors and devices are being developed for long-term exploration on behalf of humans. On the other hand, due to the harsh weather conditions and rough terrain, the rover camera has limited visible distance and field of view. Therefore, the rover cameras should be located for safe navigation and efficient terrain mapping. In this regard, to minimize the cost and time to manufacture the camera system on a rover, the simulation method using the rover design is presented to optimize the camera locations on the rover efficiently. In the simulation, a simulated terrain was taken from cameras with different locations and angles. The visible distance and overlapped extent of camera images, and terrain data accuracy calculated from the simulation were compared to determine the optimal locations of the rover's cameras. The simulated results will be used to manufacture a rover and camera system. In addition, self and system calibrations will be conducted to calculate the accurate position of the camera system on the rover.

• Journal of Space Technology and Applications
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.213-228
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• 2023

Unmanned exploration rovers serve as tools for investigating mineral resources, mining, and carrying out various scientific on celestial bodies beyond Earth, acting on behalf of humans. Recently, not only the United States but also other countries such as Japan, India and China have been attempting to develop unmanned planetary exploration rovers for space development or have successfully operated them on other celestial bodies. This has accelerated the enthusiasm for space exploration and development. However, the development and operation of unmanned rovers for planetary exploration still entail significant costs and high risks, making it difficult for universities or companies to undertake such project independently without the guidance of financial backing from government entities. In this paper, we describe the recent development trends of micro-rovers, known as Cube Rovers, which inherit the concepts and definitions of traditional Cube Sat. We also introduce the potential and expectations of Cube Rovers through the necessity of their development and ongoing planetary exploration cases.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.677-692
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• 2009

In recent years, lots of studies on the planetary rover systems have been performed around space advanced agencies such as NASA, ESA, JAXA, etc. Among the various technologies for the planetary rover system, the mobility system, navigation algorithm, and scientific payload have been focused particularly. In this paper, the conceptual design for a ground-based model of planetary rover's mobility system to evaluate mobility and moving stability on ground is presented. The status of overseas research and development of the planetary rover systems is also addressed in terms of technical issues. And then, the requirements of the planetary rover's mobility system are derived by means of considering mobility and stability. The designed rover's mobility system has an active suspension with 6 legs that controls 6 joints on the each leg in order to achieve high stability and mobility. This kind of mobility system has already applied to the ATHELE of NASA for various purposes such as transportation and habitation for human lunar exploration activities in the near future (i.e., Constellation program). However, the proposed system has been designed by focusing on the small-sized unmanned explorations, which may be applied for the future Korea Lunar exploration missions. Therefore, we expect that this study will be an useful reference and experience in order to develop the planetary exploration rover system in Korea.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.85-92
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• 2010

This study shows the path generation algorithm for an UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle). The developed UGV frame which has a 4-wheel driven mechanism and diesel source is applied. Proposed vehicle system in this research is aimed to military purpose. To achieve the unmanned autonomous driving, following two main issues are considered. First, behavior module for positioning and posture of vehicle system and second, cognition module to receive the information from environment are proposed and verified. To do this, rover which can acquire the positioning information from earth coordinate and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit) which can measure the posture are combined to design the path planning algorithm.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.173-175
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• 2011

현대의 고도화된 산업현장에서 로봇의 사용은 보편화되고 있는 실정이다. 사람이 하기 어려운 작업을 대신함으로 인해 작업의 효율성과 생산의 극대화를 이루고 있다. 이런 가운데 로봇의 쓰임이 다양화되고 있는 추세에 있다. 그 중 한 분야로 무인 탐사 로봇을 만들어 보려 한다. 무인 탐사로봇의 주요기능으로는 악조건에서도 움직일 수 있는 이동체와 원거리에서도 사람이 실시간으로 볼 수 있는 영상전송기능 등을 필요로 한다. 이런 기능을 담당하는 부품들을 제어하기 위해 프로세서가 사용된다.