Preview of Dave's "Monster Truck on Mars"

[Nate Laverdure]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Yet another NASAbot with crab drive.

To be technical, depending on the situation, the rover can use any of several steering modes at any time: tank drive, crab/swerve drive, Ackerman drive, and probably one I'm forgetting. The steering system is built on a rocker-bogie suspension system, and the whole thing is a derivative of the systems used on both the Mars Pathfinder and Mars Exploration Rover programs.

EDIT: See here for info on the MER drive system.
EDIT 2: Oh yeah, the one I forgot! To add to the list of modes of steering, the rovers also have a pre-programmed turn-in-place routine, as evidenced here.
EDIT 3: Hey, sorry for all the edits, but check out the rover's right front wheel in the picture I just posted. Notice the lettering hidden in the tread? That's clever.