Curivator Project -center wheel-

One of the things I did not think about when first designing the robot was deflection, I just figured I'd have a rigid body, and unfortunately solidworks cannot show deflection automatically. I also did not realize the role of the center wheels not until I put a scale under all the wheels, and was surprised to see that the center wheels take most of the load, which makes sense especially since I tried to keep the CoM and the centroid of geometry in the same place. As I've acknowledged the different frame geometry in the 2.0 design, I considered a bogie3 design but was not thinking about deflection, which was the advatange of this geometry. Instead I was focused on the torsion moment and how to prevent it, which still is the primary problem. The key you see is in the frame holding the mount/strut, and not the mount itself! If it deflects straight down there is no consequence no moment from front view will happen, where deflection from an angled frame will indeed have a front view moment. A side view moment is fine, where a front view moment is undesirable because the motor needs to remain parallel to the ground.

Version 4.5 has an adverse lever that causes new forces to twist the rocker bogie axle... so I'm thinking to do away with the aft rocker swivel to solve traction, and instead have 2 center wheels that straddle the aft rocker. For this to work both will need to have power to avoid traction issues. I'll see what options to power both wheels. One idea that might work is to bring frame down directly to a long shaft, and have a spur gear in the center, and simply put the motor on the frame to turn that gear. For now... all effort will go into testing this on the 1/4 scale model. This may involve some change on the bogie, but I'll make all efforts to keep the wheels in the same areas except for the center wheels... I'll want them to move forward to the sweet spot for turns and I want the 2 center wheels to be aligned with each other.