Research from the Simulation-Based Engineering Lab (SBEL) was recently featured on NBC TMJ4 (Milwaukee) and NBC 26 (Green Bay) in a story titled “UW researchers find flaw that’s been causing space rovers to get stuck.”
The coverage highlights SBEL’s work on identifying a long-standing issue in how rovers are tested on Earth before deployment to the Moon or Mars. For decades, engineers have used gravitational offset methods—lightening rover prototypes to account for reduced gravity. SBEL researchers demonstrated, using the open-source Chrono simulation framework, that this approach yields overly optimistic results, since lunar and Martian soils are less compact and more easily sheared than Earth sands.
This discovery was validated during simulations of NASA’s VIPER rover, conducted in collaboration with NASA engineers, and published earlier this year in the Journal of Field Robotics. The finding helps explain why rovers often encounter mobility challenges in extraterrestrial environments and provides a more accurate framework for future mission planning.
In addition to rover studies, SBEL continues to advance simulation methods for military vehicles, off-road platforms, and lunar vehicle prototypes under consideration for NASA’s Artemis mission.