Mars Rover – Sample Return Robot Challenge

I was the Electrical Team Lead for the OSU Mars Rover team during the 2014-2015 Academic year. I lead the development of a “Mars Rover” for the Sample Return Robot Challenge, sponsored by NASA and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. I lead the development of an entire embedded robotic system that interacted with an Embedded Computer to provide a solid foundation for the Software team to build off of. A list of the major features of the system can be found below:

Dimension Engineering “Saberteeth” Motor Controllers
Custom Atmel ATxmega microcontroller PCBs (called “Brainboards”)
- Brainboards were used as “hosts” for a number of daughterboards that preformed specialized functions (e.g. Stepper Driving, XBee breakouts, etc.)
C++ fimware implementation on microcontroller boards (ATxmega128A3U)
- Innovative features to reduce unnecessary replication of code
Power distribution and management
XBee “Pause Switch” Implementation
Stereo Vision System for obstacle avoidance
NVidia Jetson Embedded Computer