Lateral Force Model of Lunar Roving Vehicle's Wheel Based on Pressure Modifying

Manned lunar exploration is an inevitable trend of unmanned exploration, and the lunar roving vehicle (LRV) is a dispensable tool in the process of the manned lunar exploration. When the astronauts drive and steer the LRV, the actual moving direction of LRV's wheel will be different from the rolling direction, and the soil will impact lateral force on the wheel. The wheel of LRV is different from the traditional rubber tire on the earth, and it has mesh surface and deformable property because of the LRV working under the severe environments of vacuum, large temperature difference, and soft soil. Based on the normal rigid wheel model, the lateral force model of LRV is proposed by introducing three pressure modified coefficients, which contain two coefficients for the lateral cohesive force calculation and one for the lateral bulldozing force calculation. The lateral force model of the LRV's wheel is deduced using above three modified coefficients, and these coefficients are identified in the experiments.