Modelling and simulation of a gripping device for obstacle removing on lunar soil

This paper describes main design issues towards the realization of a grasping prototype that can be used on a rover for removing rocks and debris from the lunar soil. The proposed gripper design is aiming to avoid a dedicated actuation for optimising reliability and minimising weights. For this purpose, a passive grasping operation is proposed by using the available motion capabilities of a lunar rover. Design constrains have been analytically formalized and suitable sizes have been selected for the proposed grasping mechanism. The proposed design solution has been implemented as a multi-body model within MSC.ADAMS environment for numerical validations of its kinematics and dynamic behaviour.