Engineers have unveiled a sophisticated robotic prototype developed to roam the surface of Mars as part of Europe’s billion-euro ExoMars mission.

The new prototype, developed by MDA Corporation, will help engineers understand how the real rover will behave when it moves through Mars’ rocky terrain, and will test a possible suspension and locomotion set-up to be built into the final rover design.

MDA was given a list of requirements to work to concerning issues of stability; the type of terrain and soil the vehicle would encounter; obstacle height; mass and power parameters. The company’s engineers were then left to come up with a range of appropriate solutions.

 After investigating six major suspension configurations, the engineers decided bogie, or trolley system incorporating six driving and steering wheels.

Mike Schmidt, MDA’s ExoMars project manager explained: “Each wheel can turn which allows us to do point turns, rotating about the centre of the rover chassis.

“It can do a regular turn like you would do in your car, going around a sweeping bend. And it also allows us what’s called crab mode, in which all six wheels turn in the same direction, allowing the vehicle to shuffle sideways like a crab would.

“This provides benefit if you want to get up close to an object to deploy scientific instruments.”

As part of the real mission, scheduled for 2013, the rover will carry a suite of instruments to test for signs of past or present life on Mars.

Read more at BBC