The Rocker-Bogie system is the suspension

Suspension (vehicle)

Suspension is the term given to the system of springs, shock absorbers and linkages that connects a vehicle to its wheels. Suspension systems serve a dual purpose — contributing to the car's roadholding/handling and braking for good active safety and driving pleasure, and keeping vehicle occupants...

 arrangement used in the Mars rover

Mars Rover

A Mars rover is an automated motor vehicle which propels itself across the surface of the planet Mars after landing.Rovers have several advantages over stationary landers: they examine more territory, they can be directed to interesting features, they can place themselves in sunny positions to...

s (mechanical robot

Robot

A robot is a mechanical or virtual intelligent agent that can perform tasks automatically or with guidance, typically by remote control. In practice a robot is usually an electro-mechanical machine that is guided by computer and electronic programming. Robots can be autonomous, semi-autonomous or...

) introduced for the Mars Pathfinder

Mars Pathfinder

Mars Pathfinder was an American spacecraft that landed a base station with roving probe on Mars in 1997. It consisted of a lander, renamed the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and a lightweight wheeled robotic rover named Sojourner.Launched on December 4, 1996 by NASA aboard a Delta II booster a...

 and also used on the Mars Exploration Rover

Mars Exploration Rover

NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission is an ongoing robotic space mission involving two rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, exploring the planet Mars...

 and Mars Science Laboratory

Mars Science Laboratory

The Mars Science Laboratory is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission with the aim to land and operate a rover named Curiosity on the surface of Mars. The MSL was launched November 26, 2011, at 10:02 EST and is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater between August 6 and 20, 2012...

 missions. It is currently NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

's favored design.

The term “rocker” comes from the rocking aspect of the larger links on each side of the suspension system. These rockers are connected to each other and the vehicle chassis through a differential. Relative to the chassis, when one rocker goes up, the other goes down. The chassis maintains the average pitch angle of both rockers. One end of a rocker is fitted with a drive wheel and the other end is pivoted to a bogie.

The term “bogie” refers to the links that have a drive wheel at each end. Bogies were commonly used as load wheels in the tracks of army tanks as idlers distributing the load over the terrain. Bogies were also quite commonly used on the trailers of semi trailer trucks. Both applications now prefer trailing arm suspensions.

Design

The Rocker-Bogie design has no axle

Axle

An axle is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to its surroundings, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearings or bushings are provided at the mounting points where the axle...

s or spring

Spring (device)

A spring is an elastic object used to store mechanical energy. Springs are usually made out of spring steel. Small springs can be wound from pre-hardened stock, while larger ones are made from annealed steel and hardened after fabrication...

s, and allows the rover to climb over obstacles, such as rocks, that are up to twice the wheel's diameter in size while keeping all six wheels on the ground. As with any suspension system, the tilt stability is limited by the height of the center of gravity. Systems using springs tend to tip more easily as the loaded side yields. The system is designed to be used at slow speeds of around 10 cm/s, so as to minimize dynamic shocks and consequential damage to the vehicle when surmounting sizable obstacles.

JPL states that this rocker bogie system reduces the motion of the main MER vehicle body by half compared to other suspension systems.

Each of the rover's six wheels has an independent motor

Electric motor

An electric motor converts electrical energy into mechanical energy.Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current-carrying conductors to generate force...

. The two front and two rear wheels have individual steering motors which allow the vehicle to turn in place. Each wheel also has cleats, providing grip for climbing in soft sand and scrambling over rocks. The maximum speed of the robots operated in this way is limited to eliminate as many dynamic effects as possible so that the motors can be geared down, thus enabling each wheel to individually lift a large portion of the entire vehicle's mass.

In order to go over a vertical obstacle face, the front wheels are forced against the obstacle by the center and rear wheels. The rotation of the front wheel then lifts the front of the vehicle up and over the obstacle. The middle wheel is then pressed against the obstacle by the rear wheels and pulled against the obstacle by the front until it is lifted up and over. Finally, the rear wheel is pulled over the obstacle by the front two wheels. During each wheel's traversal of the obstacle, forward progress of the vehicle is slowed or completely halted. This is not an issue for the operational speeds at which these vehicles have been operated to date.

One of the future applications of rovers will be to assist astronaut

Astronaut

An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....

s during surface operations. To be a useful assistant, the rover will need to be able to move much faster than human walking speed or at least equivalent. Other missions which have been proposed, such as the Sun-Synchronous Lunar Rover, require even greater speeds (4–10 km/h).