USU URC Adventure Rover

Team: Hunter Criddle, Dalton Dayhoff, Timothy Dodge, Acea Johnson, Tom Olsen, Kylan Osburn

Sponsor: SDL and MAE

Project Description

Create an improved Mars Rover as compared to last year

Decrease Weight
Improve Arm Mobility and Control
Decrease Motor Lag
Improve Carrying Capacity/Decrease Deflection

Problem description:

Terrain Traversal and Object Retrieval
Object Parameters: 5kg and 12 in.
Terrain: Sand, Gravel, Rocks, Hills

Design Description.

Chassis design increases volumetric and mass storage while maintaining ease of component attachment

Inflatable wheels decrease weight while increasing shock absorption

Arm design mimics JPL Mars Rovers Linear base movement for ease of control Claw design allows for large object retrieval

Wheel hubs redesigned to be separable and allow the wheel gearbox to be housed inside the hub

Control Scheme designed for simplicity and to minimize cost by utilizing COTS components

Performance Review

Decreased Overall Rover Weight by 12kg, bringing rover into competition compliance Arm Control implemented using prebuilt ROS2 functions and Inverse Kinematics increasing rover movement’s positional accuracy. Motor Stop Time Decreased from 1.8s to 0.4s, making rover control much more intuitive Rover Chassis carrying capacity >40lbs with rover deflection from load decreased by .75” Nonrigid connections, and number of components decreased to reduce chassis shaking .

Conclusion

Lessons Learned:

Finish mechanical design and assembly earlier to allow more time for controls and troubleshooting
Submit purchase requests ASAP, vendor lead times eat up schedule margin
Emphasize improvement over redesign

Recommended Future Work:

Improve carbon fiber tube connections
Increased arm motor strength
Increase wheels from 4 to 6
Implement suspension
Camera vision
Soil collection and analysis