Vehicle moving with the assistance of gravity and a dual-wheel steering system in shallow dense granular media

In this study, we design a vehicle equipped with a dual-wheel steering system and able to freely move in a dense granular medium of ping-pong balls. Experimentally, it has been shown that there exists a jammed area in front of a fast-moving object in 2D dense granular media. Able to engage and break this jammed area locally, the steering system allows the vehicle to move faster than without it and change the vehicle’s direction at will. We also present preliminary results of the vehicle moving with the assistance of gravity in a 3D environment.