Inerter-Based Suspension for Wheel Lift-Off Suppression of Manned Lunar Rovers

Wheel lift-off under low gravity and rough terrain can degrade ride comfort and wheel–ground contact of manned lunar rovers. This study investigates whether an inerter-based suspension can improve vertical dynamics and contact retention. A Bekker-based equivalent wheel–regolith model was linearized around static equilibrium and incorporated into a dimensionless piecewise quarter-vehicle model with contact/separation switching. Parallel and series inerter–damper configurations were compared using frequency-response, lift-off-boundary, and time-domain analyses, and suspension parameters were optimized for rough-mare and rough-upland excitations. The series configuration exhibited a larger contact region and lower off-ground time over the investigated parameter range. After optimization, body-acceleration RMS decreased by 19.61% and 15.66%, contact-force RMS by 13.75% and 13.67%, off-ground time ratio by 59.5% and 24.5%, and lift-off counts by 42.8% and 45.5% for rough mare and rough upland, respectively, relative to the conventional suspension. These results show that appropriate inertance–damping matching can improve vertical vibration performance and wheel-contact retention under the prescribed lunar-terrain conditions.