ABSTRACT This paper presents a six‐wheeled mobile robot equipped with a novel passive adaptive suspension system. By integrating spring dampers into the bogies, the system yields two distinct configurations: a tandem lateral swing suspension and a parallel longitudinal swing suspension. Both designs allow the bogies to pivot relative to the robot body in response to low‐frequency terrain undulations, while the integrated spring dampers effectively absorb high‐frequency excitations from the ground. This mechanism ensures continuous wheel‐terrain contact on complex terrain while effectively reducing vibrations at high speeds. To assess motion smoothness and posture stability, the influence of spring‐damper deformation on the robot's attitude was first quantified. Subsequently, kinematic models of the centroid and spatial posture were established. These models determine the maximum centroid region radius and condition‐specific inverse solutions, and their validity was confirmed through multi‐body simulations, demonstrating high predictive accuracy. Field experiments show that the novel adaptive suspension reduces vertical chassis acceleration by approximately 25% compared with a rigid suspension. The integration of three adaptive suspension units significantly enhances posture stability under extreme terrain conditions, improves step‐climbing performance, and enables a payload‐to‐weight ratio of 1.41, which exceeds that of most existing wheeled platforms. Overall, the design resolves long‐standing trade‐offs among terrainability, vibration attenuation, and payload capacity, making it well‐suited for demanding tasks such as hilly farmland operations, disaster relief, and resource exploration.
Zhang et al. (2026) studied this question.