Traversability analysis of planetary rovers with variable shape wheels

The ability of a wheeled mobile robot (called rover) to face a rough terrain is a key issue of planetary exploration. The risk of slippage and loss of adehsion on a sandy soil (like the one present on Moon and Mars) is very high and it can compromise the entire mission or part of it. In order to avoid this, a new concept of wheel is here presented and discussed: a wheel that can modify its geometry (in particular the radius and the eccentricity) will be the object of study of this thesis.