Cornell Hopping Gyroscopic Rover Team
(image by Julia Sohnen)
The rover will hop, and balance via gyro momentum.
Spring 2005
This semester, the HGR team built and tested a proof of concept model and then designed and tested a hopping prototype. The POC model and design process is outlined in our Fall 2004 first semester report (2.8 MB PDF). The first hopping prototype system is outlined in the Spring 2005 second semester report (7.1 MB PDF).
Here's a peek at the prototype without its protective skin:
(first hopping prototype)
Want to see the hopper at work? Check out this test video (41.4 MB, requires QuickTime 7.0 and love for funk) to see the robot hop in a line, up and down hills, on rocks, woodchips, and grass. Bloopers included.
The team periodically presents progress to our advisor. Below are the PowerPoint slides we used as aides for these presentations:
The HGR project is motivated and inspired by the following description from Professor Mason A. Peck:
Robotic rovers have recently explored the surface of Mars with great success. Existing designs are based on wheels that, with the help of multiply articulated axles, navigate uneven and unpredictable surface features. In this project we will consider a new type of locomotion. This rover hops with a single prismatic actuator, such as a solenoid, or a blast of pressurized air. It stands up thanks to the stabilizing dynamics of a rotor (like a top, but realized as a spacecraft momentum wheel). The cuspidal and precessional motions of a top govern the pointing of the prismatic hop actuator, and appropriate timing determines the direction of travel. After lifting off of the planet's surface, the rover's dynamics are those of a dual-spin satellite. Because its contact with the terrain is minimal, this sort of rover may prove more robust, simpler (and cheaper) to build and test, and more reliable than the articulated wheeled variety. The objectives of this project include developing the dynamics and control laws for simple locomotion; creating a MATLAB simulation to demonstrate the correctness of the analysis; and developing sizing principles to aid in a top-level hardware definition. The dynamics suggest that this concept may be particularly well suited to lower-gravity environments, such as the lunar surface, making it a candidate for eventual adoption in NASA's new Space Exploration Initiative or as part of a Discovery mission.
The team is:
Matthew Fritsch
Fletcher Rothkopf (contact)
Aya Sakaguchi
Eugene Seo
David Siegel
Julia Sohnen
Ben Provan
Advisor: Mason A. Peck
Thanks for visiting!