Abstract
The Multi-terrain Amphibious ARCtic explOrer (MAARCO) rover is an amphibious arctic rover designed to traverse arctic terrains and propel through water. The MAARCO rover consists of an ellipsoid chassis with links connecting to the propulsion system. The propulsion system consists of two helical drives made up of hollow cylinder ballasts wrapped in auger or screw shaped blades in opposing helical directions parallel to each other. In this paper, a 6 degree of freedom dynamic model of the MAARCO rover is created using Kane’s method dynamic modeling to demonstrate the dynamic model capabilities for an underwater vehicle’s performance. The hydrodynamic forces considered on the underwater rover include drag, buoyancy, flow acceleration, and added mass. In addition to the hydrodynamic forces the rover will experience gravity forces, control forces, net thrust from the helical drive blades, and net buoyancy from the helical drive ballast system. The equations of motion are developed from Kane’s method to reduce computational cost and simulated in MATLAB for different cases to gain further understanding and provide a visual representation of the system underwater and the dynamic models capabilities. The results of the simulations show the MAARCO rover behavior in the hydrodynamic environment. The results reveal that the Kane’s method dynamic modeling successfully develops equations of motion of a complicated system that can be implemented into a control system.
