A tracked mechanism for sideways motion is presented in this video. The tracked mechanism is of circular cross-section and has active rolling axes at the center of the circles. Conventional tracked mechanisms can support massive loads, but cannot produce sideways motion. Previous crawler edges sink on soft ground, The proposed design solves these drawbacks by adopting a circular cross-section track. Motion experiments confirm the novel properties of this mechanism: sideways motion and robustness against edge-sink. Motion experiments with a test vehicle are also presented.
A tracked mechanism for sideways motion is presented in this video. The tracked mechanism is of circular cross-section and has active rolling axes at the center of the circles. Motion experiments confirm the novel properties of this mechanism: sideways motion and robustness against edge-sink.