NASA White Paper - Terramechanics for LTV Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

Simulating the interaction between wheel and soil is critical to the overall rover dynamics. This paper presented simple models for wheel soil interaction including the rolling resistances on the wheel due to soil compression and bull- dozing and the maximum tractive force between wheel and soil. Summary of typical lunar soil properties were presented in this paper and the wheel resis- tance model implementation and integration were also discussed. Integrating the wheel resistance model with the rover simulation will improve its dynamics and wheel slip models and enable the capability simulate the situation where wheel got stuck in the soil.