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Overview
In the academic year 2016/17, students from the University of Manchester worked on a project ran by UKSEDS to design and build a lunar rover. The aim of this wiki is to document all of the progress made in this project - the successes and the failures - and analysis of the progress.
The objectives of the project were split into three stages: first, to produce a preliminary design report, followed secondly by a critical design report to be defended in an interview with system engineers at Thales Alenia. Finally, if successful in those previous stages, the project was given funding to build the designed rover and take it to a competition day at RAL Space.
The rover design comprised of several key systems: the collection system, sensor system, drive system and control system. The collection system had two major components; a robotic arm and a scoop. These were chosen to provide versatility and redundancy. The sensor system had several components chosen to best assist a human controller - rather than provide an automated experience. These components were; optical and thermal cameras, an inertial measurement unit and a set of proximity sensors. The drive system was a per-wheel motor solution, and the control system was a web application with a simple back-end that feeds into various appropriate sensor and motor scripts.
Not all of the design was realised in the final build before the competition, however none of these actually led to insurmountable conditions for the rover. The systems missed being the robotic scoop and a finalised web inteface. The biggest failings were due to missing two of the four motors of a certain torque (the two missing motors being replaced with lower torque alternatives) and inadequate wiring. The wiring constrained arm motion and was of insufficient gauge to easily carry the current required for the motors and servos.
The current work completed has yielded a working rover, and has allowed those involved to develop their skills tremendously. It is hoped any teams who encounter this repository may benefit from our experience; that it serves to help develop their skills in electronics, programming, systems design and mechanical engineering.