pic: 3 wheel omni drive concept

[s_forbes]

Originally Posted by GeeTwo

You may also be able to achieve this by partially deploying the self-righting mechanism, and taking up the shock through backdriving the VP.

I like the idea of using the self-righting mechanisms as the brake for falling, it gives them multiple functions. I don't think the versaplanetary would like being slammed over and over again though. It probably would need a damping method between the end of the arm and the gearbox, or we would have to invest globs of money into spare versaplanetary stages.

I thought about several ways to implement this, and I think this is one of the better ways. Using a rear mountain bike shock on an additional joint on the self righting arm gives it damping ability, and is pretty adjustable. It looks like some air shocks have the ability to adjust the spring force (by varying the air pressure) and the damping coefficient, so it could likely be optimized to get rid of all of the bouncing after falling over. Pretty nifty!