Concordia University

Published purpose

The terrains of Mars and the Moon consist of fine granular regolith with embedded rocks. The entrapment of the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in soft regolith and the tears and punctures in the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover's wheels demonstrate some of the current mobility challenges of extraterrestrial granular terrains. Understanding the nature of interactions with granular terrains is thus crucial to exploring these high priority destinations. This project aims to advance robot mobility in granular terrains, through studying the effects of reduced gravity on wheel-soil interactions. A crucial long-term contribution of such experimental work is the development and validation of models and/or on-Earth soil simulants general enough to eventually supplant the need to fly reduced-gravity campaigns for each new wheel/soil/gravity configuration. Such reduced-gravity rover soil testing apparatus could provide an experimentation infrastructure for Canadian companies to test, validate, and raise the technology readiness level of wheels for any planned Lunar or Martian rovers. This research will contribute to Canada being at the cutting-edge of planetary rover research, to maintaining its global position of leadership in space robotics, and to inspiring the next generation of Canadians to reach for the stars.