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 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 a set of challenges--climbing steep slopes and surmounting unexpected obstacles like rocks and outcrops--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. This lowers the demand on navigation and control systems, impacting the efficiency of exploration missions in the years to come.

翻译：月球极地探测及火星表面样本采集任务的时间窗口较短，要求探测器具备更高自主性与移动速度。自主移动机器人必须从本质上应对更广泛的扰动。尽管陆地应用已探索了越野快速导航技术，但速度提升与低重力场耦合效应尚未得到充分研究。本文设计并验证了一种新型行星轮式机器人全被动悬架结构，该结构将高行程被动摇臂与弹性轮内线圈减震器相结合。设计首先在低重力模拟环境（1.625 m/s²）中构思并验证，通过三种不同被动悬架配置在陡坡攀爬、意外障碍物（如岩石与露头）越障等挑战场景下的性能评估，随后通过系列野外试验制造原型并完成验证。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快速移动（>1 m/s）带来的负面效应（高频/高幅振动与冲击载荷），从而降低导航与控制系统需求，这将深远影响未来探测任务的执行效率。