Integrated variable-configuration suspension for lunar surface landing buffering and heavy load transportation
By designing a variable suspension combining double wishbone configuration and leg configuration, the switching between wheel and leg movements is achieved using active joints, the efficiency in lunar landing buffering and heavy-load transportation in the prior art is solved. The problems of low and poor load-bearing and buffering capabilities achieve efficient load-bearing, buffering and terrain passing performance.
Patent Information
- Application Number
- CN202411544101.5
- Authority / Receiving Office
- CN · China
- Patent Type
- Applications(China)
- Current Assignee / Owner
- Filing Date
- 2024-10-31
- Publication Date
- 2025-02-07
AI Technical Summary
The existing wheel-leg suspension structure has low comprehensive efficiency and poor load-bearing and buffering capabilities in lunar landing buffering and heavy-load transportation.
Design an integrated variable configuration suspension, combining the double wishbone configuration and leg configuration, and realize wheeled and leg movement through the movement of active joints such as yaw joints, hip pitch joints, and knee pitch joints. toggle. The suspension uses double wishbones to provide efficient load-bearing and cushioning when wheeled, and uses support feet and active joints to improve terrain through performance when converted to leg-movement.
The suspension can combine the good load-bearing and cushioning performance of the double wishbone configuration, as well as the high-terrain passing performance of leg-movement, solving the problems of low overall efficiency and poor load-bearing and cushioning capabilities in the prior art.
Smart Images
Figure CN119388925A_ABST
Abstract
Description
Technical Field
[0001] The present invention relates to an integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation. By transforming the double wishbone wheel suspension configuration into a leg-type configuration, the rough and complex terrain passing performance and heavy-load landing cushioning performance are enhanced. Background Art
[0002] In the field of manned lunar landing, a heavy-duty lunar general platform will be used in the construction process of the lunar surface. The movement of this platform on the lunar surface needs to consider the operating efficiency and terrain passing performance. Wheeled movement is efficient and has the best performance on structured ground, but has poor obstacle crossing performance on unstructured rugged ground. Legged movement is inefficient, but has good rugged terrain obstacle crossing performance. Therefore, in order to improve the terrain adaptability of the lunar surface mobile system, wheeled movement and legged movement can be combined to improve the overall performance. The current research results include the ATHLETE six-wheeled leg robot designed by NASA, the SherpaTT four-wheeled leg robot designed by Germany, and the four-wheeled leg robot designed by the Beijing Spacecraft General Design Department. These robots all use serial manipulators as mobile legs and install wheels at the end of the manipulators to achieve wheeled movement. The disadvantage of this configuration is that the legged manipulator needs to be powered on to maintain its position during wheeled movement, so the efficiency is not high, and the suspension load-bearing and buffering capacity of the serial manipulator is poor. Ground vehicles usually use a double wishbone suspension configuration to achieve high load-bearing and terrain fluctuation buffering. There is currently a lack of suspension configuration solutions that combine the double wishbone suspension of ground vehicles with wheel-legged mobility. Summary of the invention
[0003] The technical problem solved by the present invention is: it relates to an integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation, which solves the problems of low comprehensive efficiency and poor load-bearing and cushioning capacity of the existing wheel-leg suspension configuration.
[0004] The technical solution of the present invention is: an integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation, including a double wishbone configuration, a support foot, wheels, and an active joint;
[0005] The double wishbone configuration consists of a suspension component support, an upper wishbone, a lower wishbone and a wheel drive steering component; the active joint includes a yaw joint, a hip pitch joint and a knee pitch joint; the forked ends of the upper wishbone are installed above one side of the suspension component support through a hip pitch joint; the forked end of the lower wishbone is installed below the same side of the suspension component support through a knee pitch joint, the confluent ends of the upper and lower wishbones are respectively hinged to the wheel drive steering component, and the hinged position of the lower wishbone is marked as C; the wheel drive steering component is connected to the wheel; one end of the knee joint rocker arm is connected to the knee pitch joint, the installation position is marked as A, and the other end is hinged to one end of the auxiliary power rod, and the hinged position is marked as C. The connection point is marked as B; one end of the supporting leg rod is hinged at point C, and the other end of the auxiliary power rod is hinged on the supporting leg rod, and the hinge point is marked as D; the ABCD positions form a parallelogram; the supporting foot is installed at the end of the supporting leg rod; one end of the damper is installed on the hip pitch joint, and the other end is hinged on the lower fork arm to provide passive damping force; when moving in wheeled mode, the knee pitch joint moves, the supporting leg rod is lifted up through the auxiliary power rod, and the wheels touch the ground; when moving in legged mode, the knee pitch joint moves, the supporting leg rod is extended through the auxiliary power rod, the supporting foot touches the ground, the wheels leave the ground, and legged walking is achieved by relying on the yaw joint and the hip pitch joint.
[0006] Preferably, the wheel drive steering assembly comprises a wheel rotation drive joint, a wheel steering drive joint and a wheel connection flange;
[0007] The steering movement axis of the wheel steering drive joint is orthogonal to the wheel rotation axis of the wheel rotation drive joint, and the steering movement axis is on the left-right symmetric plane of the wheel; the wheel connecting flange is connected to the wheel rotation drive joint for installing the wheel; an upper connecting ear part and a lower connecting ear part are provided on the wheel steering drive joint, which are respectively used to connect the upper fork arm and the lower fork arm.
[0008] Preferably, the wheel rotation drive joint and wheel steering drive joint of each wheel are composed of a speed rotary transformer + brake + permanent magnet synchronous motor + planetary reducer + position rotary transformer + torque sensor. Each wheel can perform torque control to achieve better lunar driving performance and vehicle handling and posture stability.
[0009] Preferably, the active joints all adopt a series elastic drive configuration of a motor reducer assembly + elastomer + actuator, the motor reducer assembly provides rotational power, and the elastomer provides filtering and passive elastic buffering of high-frequency components of terrain fluctuation disturbances on one side of the actuator.
[0010] Preferably, the hinge points at both ends of the upper fork arm and the lower fork arm are geometrically in a parallelogram configuration.
[0011] Preferably, the upper and lower fork arms are selected to have unequal lengths or the left and right sides are selected to have unequal lengths to form a non-parallelogram, which can ensure that the wheels also tilt when the vehicle body rolls, thereby providing a better wheel-ground contact state, and the length is the length between the hinge points.
[0012] Preferably, the supporting leg rod is a rod structure with a bending angle at the front end, the length of the bent portion at the front end is the same as the length of the knee joint swing arm, forming two parallel sides of a parallelogram, and the bending portion is the hinge portion D.
[0013] Preferably, the auxiliary power rod is a double-bent structure, and the root of the front bent portion is able to contact the installation portion A when the supporting leg rod is fully raised.
[0014] Preferably, the support foot and the support leg rod are connected in the form of a rotating hinge, relying on gravity to ensure that the sole of the foot is always facing the moon surface, and the side facing the moon surface is provided with anti-slip protrusions to increase friction.
[0015] The beneficial effects of the present invention compared with the prior art are:
[0016] This heavy-load buffering mobile integrated variable configuration suspension can combine the good load-bearing and buffering performance of the double-wishbone configuration, the high efficiency during wheeled movement, and the high terrain passability during legged movement. It solves the problems of low comprehensive efficiency, poor load-bearing and buffering capacity of the existing wheel-leg suspension configuration. It provides an integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing buffering and heavy-load transportation, and provides a fusion suspension solution of a double-wishbone configuration and a leg-type configuration that can achieve both leg-type landing buffering and wheeled heavy-load transportation; by transforming the double-wishbone wheel suspension configuration into a leg-type configuration, the passability of rugged and other complex terrains and the heavy-load landing buffering performance are enhanced. High support stability and a large buffering stroke can be achieved during leg support.
[0017] The suspension has high load-bearing capacity and good buffering performance of the double wishbone configuration when moving in wheeled mode or in legged mode. When the suspension configuration moves in legged mode, only two drive joints are required to work at least, thus reducing energy consumption. Three drive joints can also work to increase the obstacle crossing height to cope with extreme working conditions. The supporting legs in the suspension are arranged on the lower wishbone, thus realizing the reuse of parts of the leg-type mechanism and the double wishbone mechanism. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0018] Figure 1 Suspension composition (legged mobile state);
[0019] Figure 2 Suspension wheel mobile state;
[0020] Figure 3 Suspension leg mobile state (hiding each driving joint and wheel);
[0021] Figure 4Suspension wheeled mobile state (hiding each drive joint and wheel);
[0022] Figure 5 Schematic diagram of different buffer positions in the suspension wheel movement state;
[0023] Figure 6 Schematic diagram of different buffer positions in the suspension leg movement state. DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0024] The present invention will be further described below in conjunction with the embodiments.
[0025] The present invention relates to an integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation, such as Figure 1 , 2 As shown in FIG. 3 , it is mainly composed of a suspension component support 1, a yaw joint 2, a hip pitch joint 3, a knee pitch joint 4, a damper 5, an upper fork arm 6, a lower fork arm 7, an auxiliary power rod 8, a support leg rod 9, a support foot 10, a wheel drive steering assembly 11, a wheel 12 and a knee joint rocker arm 13.
[0026] A disc thrust bearing is arranged between the suspension component support 1 and the vehicle body to provide vertical rotation support. The yaw joint 2 is installed on the vehicle body, and its output end is engaged with the large gear on the suspension component support 1 through a small gear to achieve the yaw swing of the entire suspension component, which is used to realize the forward and backward swinging movement of the legs during leg-type walking.
[0027] The double wishbone configuration consists of a suspension assembly support 1, an upper wishbone 6, a lower wishbone 7 and a wheel drive steering assembly 11, and is geometrically in a parallelogram configuration from the perspective of the hinge position (the confluent ends of the upper and lower wishbones are respectively hinged to the wheel drive steering assembly, and the hinged portion of the lower wishbone is denoted by C; the wheel drive steering assembly is connected to the wheel; one end of the knee joint rocker arm is connected to the knee pitch joint, and the installation portion is denoted by A, and the other end is hinged to one end of the auxiliary power rod, and the hinged portion is denoted by B; one end of the support leg rod is hinged at portion C, and the other end of the auxiliary power rod is hinged to the support leg rod, and the hinged portion is denoted by D); the upper and lower sides (upper and lower wishbones) may also be selected to have unequal lengths or unequal lengths of the left and right sides to form a non-parallelogram, which can ensure that the wheels also tilt when the vehicle body rolls, thereby providing a better wheel-ground contact state.
[0028] The rotation of the knee pitch joint 4 drives the knee joint swing rod 13 to rotate, and then the supporting leg rod 9 is pushed out through the auxiliary power rod 8. The supporting foot 10 is installed at the end of the supporting leg rod 9. Its connection form is a rotating hinge. It relies on gravity to ensure that the sole of the foot is always facing the moon surface. The side facing the moon surface is provided with anti-skid protrusions to increase friction. The lower fork arm 7, the knee joint swing rod 13, the auxiliary power rod 8 and the supporting leg rod 9 form a parallelogram. The advantage of this configuration is that after the knee pitch joint 4 extends the supporting leg rod 9, it can be closed and braked. The upper and lower fork arms 6 and 7 caused by the action of the hip pitch joint 3 will move up and down with the supporting leg rod 9, and the supporting leg rod 9 is always vertical. Therefore, it is possible to achieve leg movement only through the yaw joint 2 and the hip pitch joint 3. The former realizes the swing of the leg forward and backward, and the latter realizes the lifting and lowering of the leg. When it is necessary to cross a large obstacle, the knee pitch joint 4 can also act at the same time, and the supporting leg is folded when the leg is lifted to increase the obstacle crossing height.
[0029] like Figure 3 As shown, the wheel drive steering assembly 11 is composed of a wheel rotation drive joint 11-1, a wheel steering drive joint 11-2 and a wheel connection flange 11-3. The steering motion axis is orthogonal to the wheel rotation axis, and the steering motion axis is on the left-right symmetric plane of the wheel. This arrangement can reduce the steering torque to reduce the volume, weight and power of the steering motor.
[0030] The wheel rotation drive joint 11-1 and the wheel steering drive joint 11-2 are both composed of a speed rotary transformer + brake + permanent magnet synchronous motor + planetary reducer + position rotary transformer + torque sensor. Each wheel can be torque controlled to achieve better lunar driving performance and vehicle handling and attitude stability. The torque sensor on the driving steering assembly can be used to collect the wheel dynamic torque and steering torque, and the full-wheel comprehensive torque control algorithm can be used to regulate the torque output of each wheel, that is, a similar torque control method is used to make the driving torque and steering torque between the four wheels cooperate with each other to achieve vehicle driving stability, anti-slip performance, maneuverability and driving comfort. The wheel rotation data collected by the position rotary transformer combined with the position data collected by the vehicle positioning sensor can obtain information such as wheel slip rate, and then the wheel slip rate can be controlled to achieve comprehensive and better vehicle traction control.
[0031] like Figure 3 As shown, the supporting leg rod is a rod structure with a bending angle at the front end. The length of the bending part at the front end is the same as the length of the knee joint swing rod, forming two parallel sides of a parallelogram, and the bending part is the hinge part D.
[0032] like Figure 4 As shown, the auxiliary power rod is a double-bending structure, and the root of the front bending part is in contact with the installation part A when the supporting leg rod is fully raised.
[0033] like Figure 5 As shown, when the vehicle moves on wheels, the upper and lower double wishbones connect the vehicle body to the wheels, the supporting leg rod 9 is lifted, the supporting foot 10 is not in contact with the ground, and the wheels touch the ground. Terrain fluctuations can cause the double wishbone suspension to swing up and down, and flexible buffering in the vertical direction of the suspension is achieved by relying on the elastic links in the hip pitch joint and the elastic links of the damper. The hip pitch joint provides active damping force, and the damper provides passive damping force.
[0034] like Figure 6 As shown in the figure, when it is necessary to convert to leg-type movement, the knee pitch joint moves, and the supporting leg rod is extended through the auxiliary power rod, the supporting foot contacts the ground, and the wheel leaves the ground. Terrain fluctuations can also cause the double wishbone suspension to swing up and down, and leg-type walking can be achieved by relying on the yaw joint and hip pitch joint. When it is necessary to cross a larger obstacle, the movement of the knee pitch joint is increased. When moving in leg-type, the elastic link in the hip pitch joint and the elastic link of the damper are also relied on to achieve flexible buffering in the vertical direction of the suspension. The hip pitch joint and knee pitch joint provide active damping force, and the damper provides passive damping force. The up and down swing stroke of the double wishbone during leg-type movement is larger than that during wheel-type movement, so the buffering stroke is larger and the buffering performance is better.
[0035] The three active joints adopt a series elastic drive configuration of motor reducer assembly + elastomer + actuator, where the elastomer can be a torsion spring, etc., which provides filtering and passive elastic buffering of high-frequency components of terrain fluctuation disturbance on one side of the actuator, reduces the high dynamic performance requirements of the motor, saves costs and achieves better force control and buffering effects.
[0036] The movement of the lunar universal platform on the lunar surface needs to consider operating efficiency and terrain passability. Wheeled movement has high efficiency but poor obstacle crossing ability, while legged movement has low efficiency but strong obstacle crossing ability. Based on the double wishbone configuration with good load-bearing and buffering performance, the present invention designs a variable configuration suspension that can take into account the high efficiency of wheeled movement and the high terrain passability of legged movement through wheel-leg switching, solving the problems of low comprehensive efficiency and poor load-bearing and buffering capacity of the existing wheel-leg suspension configuration.
[0037] Although the present invention has been disclosed as above in the form of a preferred embodiment, it is not intended to limit the present invention. Any person skilled in the art may make possible changes and modifications to the technical solution of the present invention by using the methods and technical contents disclosed above without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Therefore, any simple modifications, equivalent changes and modifications made to the above embodiments based on the technical essence of the present invention without departing from the content of the technical solution of the present invention shall fall within the protection scope of the technical solution of the present invention.
[0038] Parts not described in detail in the present invention belong to common knowledge of those skilled in the art.
Claims
1. An integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation, characterized in that It includes double wishbone configuration, support foot, wheels, and active joints; The double wishbone configuration consists of a suspension component support, an upper wishbone, a lower wishbone and a wheel drive steering component; the active joint includes a yaw joint, a hip pitch joint and a knee pitch joint; the forked ends of the upper wishbone are installed above one side of the suspension component support through a hip pitch joint; the forked end of the lower wishbone is installed below the same side of the suspension component support through a knee pitch joint, the confluent ends of the upper and lower wishbones are respectively hinged to the wheel drive steering component, and the hinged position of the lower wishbone is marked as C; the wheel drive steering component is connected to the wheel; one end of the knee joint rocker arm is connected to the knee pitch joint, the installation position is marked as A, and the other end is hinged to one end of the auxiliary power rod, and the hinged position is marked as C. The connection point is marked as B; one end of the supporting leg rod is hinged at point C, and the other end of the auxiliary power rod is hinged on the supporting leg rod, and the hinge point is marked as D; the ABCD positions form a parallelogram; the supporting foot is installed at the end of the supporting leg rod; one end of the damper is installed on the hip pitch joint, and the other end is hinged on the lower fork arm to provide passive damping force; when moving in wheeled mode, the knee pitch joint moves, the supporting leg rod is lifted up through the auxiliary power rod, and the wheels touch the ground; when moving in legged mode, the knee pitch joint moves, the supporting leg rod is extended through the auxiliary power rod, the supporting foot touches the ground, the wheels leave the ground, and legged walking is achieved by relying on the yaw joint and the hip pitch joint.
2. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The wheel drive steering assembly comprises a wheel rotation drive joint, a wheel steering drive joint and a wheel connection flange; The steering movement axis of the wheel steering drive joint is orthogonal to the wheel rotation axis of the wheel rotation drive joint, and the steering movement axis is on the left-right symmetric plane of the wheel; the wheel connecting flange is connected to the wheel rotation drive joint for installing the wheel; an upper connecting ear part and a lower connecting ear part are provided on the wheel steering drive joint, which are respectively used to connect the upper fork arm and the lower fork arm.
3. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The wheel rotation drive joint and wheel steering drive joint of each wheel are composed of speed rotary transformer + brake + permanent magnet synchronous motor + planetary reducer + position rotary transformer + torque sensor. Each wheel can perform torque control to achieve better lunar driving performance and vehicle handling and posture stability.
4. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The active joints all adopt a series elastic drive configuration of motor reducer assembly + elastomer + actuator. The motor reducer assembly provides rotational power, and the elastomer provides filtering and passive elastic buffering of high-frequency components of terrain fluctuation disturbance on one side of the actuator.
5. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The hinge points at both ends of the upper fork arm and the lower fork arm are geometrically in a parallelogram configuration.
6. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The upper and lower wishbones are selected to have different lengths or the left and right sides have different lengths to form a non-parallelogram, which can ensure that the wheels also tilt when the vehicle body rolls, thereby providing a better wheel-ground contact state. The length is the length between the hinge points.
7. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 1 is characterized in that: The supporting leg rod is a rod structure with a bending angle at the front end. The length of the bending part at the front end is the same as the length of the knee joint swing rod, forming two parallel sides of a parallelogram, and the bending part is the hinge part D.
8. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 7 is characterized in that: The auxiliary power rod is a double-bent structure, and the root of the front bent portion is sufficient to be in contact with the installation position A when the supporting leg rod is fully raised.
9. The integrated variable configuration suspension for lunar landing cushioning and heavy-load transportation according to claim 7 is characterized in that: The support foot and the support leg rod are connected in the form of a rotating hinge, which relies on gravity to ensure that the sole of the foot is always facing the moon surface. The side facing the moon surface is provided with anti-slip protrusions to increase friction.