This project explores a novel high mobility locomotion system concept for unstructured environments. The Intelligent Mobility Platform with Active Spoke System (IMPASS) utilizes rimless wheels with individually actuated spokes to provide the ability to step over large obstacles like legs, adapt to uneven surfaces like tracks, yet retaining the speed and simplicity of wheels. Since this system lacks the complexity of legs and has a large effective (wheel) diameter, this highly adaptive system can move over extreme terrain with ease while maintaining respectable travel speeds, and thus has great potential for search-and-rescue missions, scientific exploration, and anti-terror response applications. This research project will research, demonstrate and evaluate this novel concept with a focus on studying the issues of mobility, intelligent motion planning, and design. The intellectual merits of the proposed activities lie in the development of an original concept of a new type of high mobility locomotion system and an improved understanding of mobility and intelligent motion planning issues. The broader impacts of this research include the many important application areas of the high mobility system enabled by extending human reach capabilities into unknown and hazardous environments. This effort will integrate research with education and promote teaching and learning by integrating the prototype design into the two-semester undergraduate senior design project. The robot prototypes developed will be demonstrated to the public at the FIRST robotic competitions and at local high schools to promote interest in science and engineering.
