TravisDeyle.com

So there is this company called Mattracks that makes cool tank tread wheels. Basically, they attach to the drive shaft where a 'normal' round wheel would be attached. The benefit is that the tank tread drive mechanism gives you much better traction and versatility, and thus the ability to traverse otherwise impossible terrain. Mattracks has some very cool videos on their website here.

The Mattracks wheels actually come in a variety of sizes, depending on the the vehicle you'd like to outfit. On their website, they have examples where they have been outfitted on tractors, SUVs, pickups, and even ATVs. In fact, the ATV ones come in a variety of styles.

OK, I'm not an extreme off-road enthusiast, so why do I think Mattracks are important? Consider the most bad-arse motorized wheelchair ever made, the Tank Chair.

Instead of being a hardy, stable platform for humans, Mattracks could be a hardy, stable platform for mobile robots. You see this all the time, particularly in BEAM robotics -- design fool-proof mechanics, and it reduces the amount of intelligence required. Consider the Robosapien (coincidentally developed by the inventor of BEAM robots, Mark Tilden). It is relatively 'dumb;' there isn't much computational power used to ensure that it walks upright, instead it relies on mechanics. I'm sure it would have been useful in the original DARPA Grand Challenge if contestants could just tread over obstacles instead of traversing around them.

NOTE:  This post originally appeared on Hizook.com, which has been transformed into a robotics-centric website.  To preserve all of my original posts, I've transferred the content to my new homepage TravisDeyle.com.  I also encourage you to scope out the new Hizook!