Seeking inside chassis view of "articulated track drives"

Community General Discussions
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Hi All,

I've googled my search engine to the max and have come up with only one inside view (linked below) of the mechanisms of a robot with articulated tracks.  What i mean by that is robots like these:

high-mobility-robot-3.jpg

I've found many photos of ones that either move both the front or back tracks up/down in pairs, and others that can move each track up/down independently (while still driving).

Some of the robots had a servo inside that used levers which eventually worked their way to to the front tracks to move them up/down).  All of the militray UGVs, like the picture above, seem to have a single motor on each track.  Is this some type of coaxial motor which is two motors? one motor which drives the track, and then another motor which moves it up/down?

The link I found was for the Dagu Multi Chassis Rescue which shows how such a robot is assembled, using two motors (one for the left and one for the right side), and then a single servo to control both front tracks, raising it up or lowering it down.

So if anyone has built one of these yourself (regardless if it works or not), or has saved any pix on their computers from past robo-research, feel free to post some here so me (and anyone else intersted) can see the robot-guts of an articulated track-drive robot and better understand how its drivetrain works.

 Thanks!

 

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This instructable should

This instructable  should be helpful.

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Thanks!

Thanks for all of the posts all!  Not only has it answered my question, but the information has given me additional things to look into.  

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I thought I was finished but…

Hi again all.  After looking at the instructable link, the creator of that robot explains…

" I have put 2 sprockets on each of these tracks which allows me to drive and rotate each track. The way it works is the inner sprocket is attached directly to the outside of the tread housing which rotates the full track around when powered, then there is the outer sprocket that is attached to a shaft that runs through the center of the inner sprocket. This is attached to the wheel that drives the treads."

FGEFXR1HRI8TL8J_LARGE.jpg


I’ve seen coaxial shafts before, like in an rc helicopter (which i opened to check out) that has two rotors.  But now when I google “robot coaxial shaft” or “coaxial sprocket” I don’t come up with any leads as to how I would acheive this type of feat.  

Is there a technical term for this type of configuration that I’ve possible missed?  Thanks!

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Yes thanks! It was extremely

Yes thanks! It was extremely helpful