Planetary Rovers Project

The purpose of the Planetary Rovers Project is to build three autonomous rovers to collect data and communicate the collected data to other rovers. One of the rovers acts as a server rover that stores its data and the data transmitted by client rovers; the rest of the rovers are client rovers that store acquired data and send it to the server rover. In a simulated environment of Mars, the task of three rovers is to:

• Take a picture from the front camera every ten seconds, save it on the rover, and send it to the server rover.

• Collect temperature and humidity data of the research area and share it with the server rover.

• Autonomously move inside the research boundary using GPS sensor and Berry IMU with the capability of returning to the starting location when the rover crosses the boundary.

The six-wheeled rovers have customized housing attached at the top of the metal chassis to hold the raspberry pi, GPS sensor, temperature sensor, and Pi Camera. All aspects of the project have been accomplished, except for the precise movement of rovers using GPS coordinates in a small space.

Although this project aims to build rovers for coordinated research on other planets, this project can also be useful for different applications: unmanned military missions, research missions in deserts, and automated robot farming.

Undergraduate Capstone Project Team:

Sangam Chapagain (Mechanical. Engineering)

Charles Nourrcier (Computer Engineering)

Jan Veintidos (Computer Science)

Rhonda Anderson (Computer Engineering)

Oluwasei Ayo-Anjorin (Computer Science)

Advisors: Dr. Bei Xie and Dr. Seyed Baradaran Aghili

Sponsor: LASPACE

College of Engineering and Computer Science

McNeese State University

System Software Design

Server/Client Process Flow Diagram

Rover Trunk Design