Abstract: Manned lunar rover is handled by an astronaut on the soft lunar terrain. To be familiar with the dynamic properties of manned lunar rover, the astronaut has to be trained and do the imitation experiments on the earth. However, if an imitation vehicle on the earth is used to replicate the linear acceleration running of manned lunar rover on the moon, same driving torques for each vehicle may cause different linear accelerations due to the difference between the earth and moon gravities. In terms of above issue, a linear acceleration model of manned lunar rover is established based on the terramechanics and forced-slip theory, and the traction force conditions for the linear acceleration imitation are analyzed. Then an imitation algorithm of driving torque for the wheels of the imitation vehicle is derived to replicate the linear acceleration of the manned lunar rover. The imitation algorithm is verified by using two different imitation vehicles with same mass and vertical load as the manned lunar rover on the moon. The calculated results show that the imitation vehicles on the earth driven by the imitation algorithm can produce the same linear acceleration as the manned lunar rover moving on the moon, but the imitation vehicles without using the imitation algorithm cannot produce the same linear acceleration. Key

Key words: lunarrover, lunarexploration, terramechanics, linearacceleration, imitationalgorithm