The demand for wood is growing continuously, whether as a climate-friendly and sustainable building material or for the sustainable generation of energy by burning firewood, pellets or wood chips. In the course of climate change, cold periods are shortening in which it is possible to carry out mechanized timber harvesting on sensitive soils with heavy forestry machinery in a way that protects the soil. In order to enable the development of wetlands and minimize damage to the forest floor, the abionic movement principle of "walking with a portal walking mechanism" was developed in a previous research project at the TU Dresden.

The mechanical, hydraulic and control requirements and properties of the movement principle "walking with a portal walking mechanism" are being further researched in the current research project "Portal walking mechanism as a movement principle on traffic-sensitive soils and fissured subsoils".

The hydraulic and control systems and architectures are being developed and researched at the Mobile Machinery Division, while the basic mechanical concept of the machine is being revised at TU Dresden so that it can withstand the loads in the harsh forest environment.

For the development of the hydraulic and control systems, the overall system is examined more closely in various simulations in order to be able to derive requirements for the subsystems before these are implemented on a real prototype. A consistent "software-in-the-loop" concept is used for control system development, as this minimizes the residual risks for a prototype.

The results of the simulations and software developments are implemented in a prototype in order to validate the simulations and further verify the movement principle.