The exploration of the lunar poles and the collection of samples from the martian surface are characterized by shorter time windows demanding increased autonomy and speeds. Autonomous mobile robots must intrinsically cope with a wider range of disturbances. Faster off-road navigation has been explored for terrestrial applications but the combined effects of increased speeds and reduced gravity fields are yet to be fully studied. In this paper, we design and demonstrate a novel fully passive suspension design for wheeled planetary robots, which couples for the first time a high-range passive rocker with elastic in-wheel coil-over shock absorbers. The design was initially conceived and verified in a reduced-gravity (1.625 m/s${^2}$) simulated environment, where three different passive suspension configurations were evaluated against steep slopes and unexpected obstacles, and later prototyped and validated in a series of field tests. The proposed mechanically-hybrid suspension proves to mitigate more effectively the negative effects (high-frequency/high-amplitude vibrations and impact loads) of faster locomotion (~1\,m/s) over unstructured terrains under varied gravity fields.

翻译：月球极地探测与火星表面样本采集面临更短任务窗口期，要求提升自主性与移动速度。自主移动机器人须天然适应更复杂干扰场景。虽然地面应用已开展高速越野导航研究，但重力场降低与速度提升的耦合效应尚未充分探究。本文设计并验证了一种新型全被动悬架方案，该方案首次将高行程被动摇臂结构与弹性轮内螺旋弹簧减震器相结合。该设计先在模拟低重力环境（1.625 m/s²）中完成概念验证，通过对三种不同被动悬架构型在陡坡与突发障碍场景下的评估，随后制作原型并通过系列现场测试完成验证。实验表明，所提出的机械混合悬架能更有效抑制不同重力场下非结构化地形中高速移动（~1 m/s）产生的负面影响（高频/高幅振动与冲击载荷）。 ]