Heterogeneous,multi-tier wheel ground contact simulation for planetary exploration

Abstract

Today's growing scientific interest in extraterrestrial bodies increases the necessity of extended mobility on these bodies. Thus, planetary exploration systems are facing new challenges in terms of mission planning, obstacle and soil traversability. In order to fit the tight schedules of space missions and to cover a large variety of environmental conditions, experimental test setups are complemented by numerical simulation models used as virtual prototypes. In this context we present an integrated simulation environment which allows for using different available contact models, ranging from simple but real-time capable approximations based on rigid-body modeling techniques up to very accurate solutions based on Discrete Element Method (DEM). For this work, a one-point Bekker based approach and the so-called Soil Contact Model (SCM), which is a multi-point extension of the \textsc{Bekker}-\textsc{Wong} method taking soil deformation into account, are used. These two contact models are applied for homogeneous models with only one type of contact model for all wheels as well as for a heterogeneous multi-tiered model with different contact models for the wheels. It will be shown that the multi-tiered approach enhances the simulation result accuracy compared to the results of a homogeneous model with a low level of detail while speeding up the simulation in comparison to a homogeneous higher tier model.