ROVER-CLIMBER

Every time lugging bulky geophysical equipment on mountain glaciers, I wanted a jeep. Finally it was received. And here we tracked the car-amphibians against snow-capped mountains… revved the motor and the machine, lost in the snow at the cabin, moved slowly. Ahead was the forehead of the glacier. Pretty flat for Hiking standards: degree fifteen. But the driver knew that the snow he did not take, and took the car sideways. In the middle of the forehead jumped out the caterpillar.

 

A sledgehammer, a pile of metal, drowned in snow, frost and wind… About an hour, we pulled the tracks and then turned back. It was possible to improve on the windy moraine of a glacier sticking out from under the snow stones. But the Rover took a detour: stones. They are so easily broken trucks and the fingers of the caterpillars.

 

And I realized that the most common, the most omnipotent of the existing all-terrain — tracked — not a dream but a past stage.

 

You need something fundamentally new: the traffic that would be going on the mounds of ice with a height of one meter and loose snow, water, rocks and steep grades. This device must be long enough to overcome the cracks gaping in the ice, or snow closed the “bridges”; quite light and portable, so it can be send to the baggage car and throw it into the mountains a little helicopter…

 

…On the stones caterpillar breaks.

 

So, we need to break it in advance! On individual pieces, trucks, — let him crawl alone. How? Put on every, say, motors. With their help, the truck will move along a closed guide and, as the winch will drag the car.

 

Thus was born the idea of the author’s certificate No. 386797, issued March 28, 1973 on “the Propulsion of a vehicle”, which can be called by trakovi, because its essence and basis of the self — propelled truck. The wording of the subject invention is somewhat complex: “the Propulsion of a vehicle, containing a closed guide rails associated with the vehicle body movably mounted on the guide supporting elements, wherein to automatically adapt to the different profile and different carrying capacity of the soil and to move them along the guide supporting elements are Autonomous and have individual engines.”

 

 

 

You do not believe that this idea is the principle of being the universal mover, able to climb mountains, Wade through swamps, jump, crawl and swim? Then (don’t look at the pictures while not to constrain your imagination) try to replace the engine of any machine, the legs of any living creature. Every time replacement we can do it!

 

I had no idea about this kind of versatility: from idea to author’s certificate passed 5 years. Within two years, pondered ways of technical realization. Was cor,.tion: where, besides my mountain glaciers, and who else needs a supercar, curvetted moving because the body crawling small self-propelled mechanisms, replacing simple glands — Shoe tracks? And not one (although you can do one, but then it will be intermittent or jerky movement), but many. However, it’s harder if you keep in mind the truck as a reference element. But the car in General easier. Because it consists of many identical, interchangeable, Autonomous mechanisms and not of a complex of rigidly linked to each other, complex and diverse: powertrain, wheels, suspension engine.

 

This machine in General will be more reliable. For the same reason: self-contained supporting members are working independently, the failure of one of them almost imperceptible — the reliability of the ensemble of parallel elements increases with increasing number of elements and tends to one, even if the reliability of one of them is close to zero And tracks conventional tracks are connected in series, and the gap at least in one place leads to the exit of the sling chain. The reliability of this propulsion is inversely proportional: it tends to zero when increasing the number of links, even if the reliability of one unit is close to one. So the caterpillar chain can not be too long, even in theory.

 

So, the new car in General will become more reliable and easier. And simpler to manufacture. It is enough to work out how one should design one cart — self-propelled element — and then you can mount them in any amount and on any device interaction with a surface or environment; plates, air bags, grips, pontoons, blades — in the case of self-propelled machines of any size. This, of course, easier, than each time to develop and build a new dedicated machine.

 

 

 

Truck engine can be put on any object, even the most bulky; would need only the guides of the necessary length and the necessary number of self-propelled trucks — and move these objects far better! What are the objects? Platforms with drilling rigs through swamps and tundra; bundles of pipes for oil and gas pipelines, farms, bridges, houses, finally, the ships in the winter — not breaking the ice, but on ice! This is a very important advantage of the new propulsion is promising in modern masshtaba. the development of Siberia and the North of the huge win.

 

There is another, more important: the automatic adaption to various load-bearing surface and to the soil profile. In the simplest case, this property is reflected in the fact that depending on the nature of the soil and the distribution of irregularities under the lower, working part of the guide Autonomous supporting elements can automatically be placed at different distances from each other, and in the support and movement of the vehicle can be used a variety of them.

 

Is implemented, this property is extremely simple, due to the dependence of the rate of movement of the support along the guide elements from the load on their engines: the more load the less speed, n Vice versa. For example, when driving on an uneven surface the supporting elements will quickly slip trenches, pits and rests in mounds, ledges, rocks, propelling the car forward.

 

Where is the property truck mover is adjusting to the irregularities expressed in this simplest form, could affect the decisive? DIN, where these irregularities more. Scope of application these machines are enormous, and above all — mountains.