16 - Adjustable Wheel

Team Members:

Alyssa Dixon, Dhru Patel, Jin Wu, Sagar Bhatta

Summary/Overview:

Navigation of complex terrain is crucial for robotic vehicles used in rescue and exploration. In these situations, vehicles need to be able to climb over steep ledges and into small crevices. There is a tradeoff between these two abilities depending on the diameter of the vehicle’s wheels, as large diameters can climb over obstacles while small diameters can fit into tight spaces. Our robot will contain a mechanism to increase its wheel diameter to climb edges and decrease the diameter to duck into small spaces. This effectively solves the problem and creates a more robust system for vehicles being used in rescue and exploration

 Our target for this project is to design and implement variable-radii wheels which will increase radius up to 40% approximately when installed on a robotic vehicle like that from build assignment two. We are planning to use a joystick to control the radius change.

Table of Contents: 

• 16.1 - Project ProposalPreview

• 16.2 - Kinematics Analysis

• 16.3 - Project Prototype