Propeller QuadRover - OSURC Journal

Near the end of February a group of students came by the Parallax office with a project and a bid for help; Parallax answered that bid. We supplied these students with a Propeller QuadRover and armed them with a few electronic parts to get them on their way, after a few words were spent between Parallax Engineers and the brave students from the Oregon State University Robotics Club (OSURC), they were on their way.

Now we're cataloguing their exploits on our site to record this fantastic project of theirs, and to show the world these student's ingenuity and progress as they venture forth to test their skill in NASA's University Rover Challenge (URC).

Pictures and emailed events to be displayed below, but also feel free to interact with them and wish them good luck via the Parallax forums at the following link: OSU enters Mars Rover challenge with Parallax QuadRover

June 2008 - Hanksville, Utah

The OSURC team wins Grand Prize in the NASA University Mars Rover Challenge! Combining the knowledge, creativity and determination to go with the toughness and reliability of the Propeller QuadRover, the team was able to take first place in 3 of 4 tasks to take the overall win!

Read the Full Story: http://www.marssociety.org/portal/Members/schnarff/URC2008Results/

For other pics and video click on the links:
High Resolution Pics
OSURC URC Construction Task (vid)
OSURC URC Rover Soil Task (vid)
OSURC URC Rover Soil Tas Drilling (vid)

Stay tuned and keep checking back as more updates from the contest come in.

March 1st

Just off and on the road again with their recently acquired goodies from Parallax the students in Oregon State University's Robotics Club prepare themselves for their mission; they study manuals and pour over programming schematics to discover the best techniques to accomplish their roving goals.  Even while on the bumpy roads leading them home they read Propeller manuals and brainstorm, they need to be innovative and consider the goals of the challenge.

The first few objectives are simple: raise the Propeller QuadRover to a more apt height for maintenance and modification; a stand was built to elevate the rover four feet.  Afterwards the rover has to be serviced and each moving part inspected, so after filling the rover's fuel tanks and setting it upon blocks to prevent forward movement they create and program a controller to increase and decrease throttle with two pushbuttons.

With the rover's control in place they decide to increase its power house by building a 5 volt regulator and relay control board.  After tinkering and working with great diligence a control was manufactured to power the servos and control the solenoids. The larger power supply would provide greater manipulation of the rover and control other added features, but first they had to control the engine, so a .spin had to be created to govern these features. A communication device would have to be implanted as well to facilitate a robotic arm, camera, and multiple sensors.

March 9th

The OSU students are hard at work with one of the rover competition's tasks: they must construct an arm for their robot.

Rovers shall be required to secure several ½" hex bolts on a mock-up equipment panel. The bolts will be placed between 15cm and 75cm above the ground, and may lie at inclinations of no more than 45° in either direction from the horizontal plane. All bolts will begin in the proper threaded slot, and must be secured by turning clockwise. Measures to prevent over-tightening and/or stripping should be employed. Rovers shall have to travel up to 0.5 km across relatively flat terrain (negligible slope) to reach the panel.

For materials they turned once again to Parallax where a representative, Paul Bouchard, got them in contact with Alex Dirks of CrustCrawler Inc. With Alex's help they figured out exactly what they'd need to design and build their perfect robotic arm concept.

Instead of creating a control for the robotic arm like one might control any other RC-Vehicle they would make two arms, one arm for the robot and one as a control. Moving the control-arm would cause the arm on the robot to mimic its movement. This would offer a more precise and direct control over the robot arm when the objective was viewed through a camera on the rover.

March 16th

By now these hard working students have been acquiring and testing for Amateur Radio Licenses, which will not only allow them to operate their rover legally but grant them access to better equipment and deals.  They've also managed to incorporate a servo control, GPS module, and digital compass to work with a custom user interface capable of sending serial commands to the rover and its components.

In the final weeks up to the contest they will work on their own robotic arm and the rest of the controls required to operate their rover.  All equipment must work under all conditions and operate safely without disrupting other controls and necessary attachments on the rover.  Their dedication to their project continues.

April 1st

Work and preparations continue for the rover team as time marches on towards their deadline; most of the team's members have taken and passed their Amateur Radio License testing and a few received their call signs. With that worry out of the way, they had plenty of time to concern themselves with the robotic arm, the user interface, and the development board.

The user interface was fitted with a PlayStation 2 controller, which boasts two analog joysticks, so that they control all aspects of the rover easily on one controller. Forward, back, side to side, and even ramping up with the throttle and cutting back. The adapted controller gives it a more intuitive feeling and the simplicity should help in production and on the field as more parts are added and adapted for the rover. The interface works in unison with the newly developed Proto Board Propeller that they OSU Students constructed.

5v regulators, servo controllers, GPS system, and solenoid controllers are only a few of the parts that comprise the Proto Board Propeller.  The board will help control the robotic arm that is still under stages of development; it is calculated to weigh 3lbs once completed and will have various moving parts with an operating Gator Grip to power its hand.  The team still has a few other fixes and tweaks to the engine and operation of the rover to knock out before they're ready to hit the competition head on.

April 15th

Great progress was made during the past two weeks:

Amateur Radio License:
Jordan passed his amateur radio license test last Tuesday.  All four of us are now licensed to operate the video transmission equipment on the rover.

Data and Video Transmission:
We've used our amateur licenses to buy amateur television broadcasting equipment.  Our current tests are done using 50 mW, but our amplifier and licenses enable us to use the maximum 1 W allocated to remote vehicles.  The ATV transmitter has been connected to the rover and we've begun to drive the rover by using remote vision.  The next step for this is to do a distance test.  We have found a venue close to town that will allow us to raise a large antennae and get a realistic idea of both video and data ranges.
Video of working ATV:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujqp-lvL5aA

Robotic Arm:
A control panel that intentionally has several .5" loose bolts was built last week.  The servos arrived for our robotic arm two days ago.  A new youtube is posted on the OSURC channel showing the control interface we're using for this arm.  We're very pleased about how intuitive and smooth the arm operates.  The next step is to finish the arm construction, attach the arm to the rover, and see how well the arm can tighten bolts in the control panel.  An optimistic goal is to be able to complete the construction task by the next progress report.
Video of Arm:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIUwc9Dk-sg

Soil Sensors:
We've begun the task of measuring soil temperature, moisture, and pH.  A thermal couple attached to a augur drill bit allows us to measure temperature both at the surface and 10 cm below.  We found a probe from a garden supply store that quickly measures soil moisture and soil pH.  We've attached photos of both sensor tools designed for this task.

Navigation:
The GPS coordinates of the rover have been included in the latest revision of the GUI interface.  Alex Weeks, a young programming enthusiast has joined our team and is helping Ben Goska with the programming.  A screenshot of the GUI is attached.

Dress Rehearsal:
We're planning on having a dress rehearsal for the competition during May 10th and 11th.  We will set up a control tent, and run the rover through a realistic mock up of the 4 events.  The WWII military base, Camp Adair, is our most likely site for this practice.  We will send out invitations and details as those dates gets closer.

Thank you for keeping us on track!  7 weeks until the competition.

May 1st

Well, the team is moving ahead at full speed. Enjoy the latest updates.

Video Transmitter:
The amplifier for the ATV system has been constructed. With this amp we have been able to transmit video over a very populated 2 miles. We also attached a large heatsink to keep the operation temperature low.

Robotic Arm:
The robotic arm was fully assembled and we found it had some trouble lifting the socket when fully extended. We came up with some solutions, the first is to use springs to counterbalance the arm, the second is replacing the metal socket with a lighter weight one. YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/v/vNamS2zI9og

Soil Sensors:
Solid works drawings have been created for the brackets that will attach our sensors to the arm, they will be printed within the week.
Also we have begun calibrating the sensors.

Cameras:
We bought a visible spectrum camera and also an IR camera, the IR will be used when performing a spectral analysis. The visible camera will be used both for our live video for driving and for our still images.

Navigation:
Basic waypoint navigation has been implemented. The rover has the ability to go from one GPS location to another autonomously. This has not been tested extensively yet so a lot of work must be done. Wheel encoders have been designed and will be printed this week.

Batteries:
Another new addition to the rover is the Li-Poly batteries. These enabled us to shed some weight and gain some run time.

Interface:
The rover interface has been overhauled with a new tab layout. This enables us to only have information important to the task we are currently performing.

The dress rehearsal is approaching quickly and so is the competition.