Patent ID: 8875816

Claim:
A lightweight mobile robot, comprising: (a) a chassis less than 500 pounds; and (b) two independent tracked drives, one each disposed on an opposing side of the chassis, each tracked drive having a height and length, each tracked drive including: (i) a drive wheel assembly at a rear top of the tracked drive, the drive wheel assembly including: a drive wheel, and a drive motor for driving the drive wheel; (ii) at least four independently suspended bogie assemblies at a center bottom of the tracked drive, each bogie assembly including: a road wheel, a bogie suspension arm with the road wheel rotatably mounted at a distal end thereof, the bogie arm swingable through a vertical range of more than one quarter to one half of the tracked drive height, the bogie suspension arm having a serpentine curvature offsetting the corresponding road wheel outwardly from the chassis by a distance at least equal to a length of a longitudinal central axis of the road wheel, an inflection point of the bogie suspension arm positioned at a distance along a length of the suspension arm greater than a radius of the road wheel, thereby providing clearance for adjacent road wheels to swing past one another without making contact with any portion of the adjacent bogie assembly, and a shock absorber mounted to independently compress the bogie suspension arm; (iii) an idler wheel assembly at a front top of the tracked drive, the idler wheel assembly including: an idler wheel, and a linearly translating idler wheel arm with the idler wheel rotatably mounted at a distal end thereof; (iv) a compliant elastomer track entraining the drive wheel, the road wheels, and the idler wheel, the elastomer track having two peripheral rows of raised drive features flanking a row of guide horns protruding from an inwardly facing track surface for matably engaging with the drive wheel, the road wheels and the idler wheel, wherein the elastomer track is mounted with a tension; and (v) a compliant front shoe fixedly coupled to a bogie suspension arm and shock absorber disposed at a front of the chassis and in communication with the road wheel adjacent the idler wheel, the compliant front shoe being centered about the central guide horns and disposed substantially equidistantly between the idler wheel and adjacent road wheel.