Curiosity Inspired Long Range Remote Vehicle - a project I want to get OCUK started on.

Soldato
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Huge Solar panel + Wales = 1mAh

Very large wheels may be better than tracks, no autonomous vehicles use tracks.

Few try to scale mountains, most seem to be used on flat sands or fields where wheels are fine.

Depends on the terrain at the end of the day, 4 wheels are easily flummoxed by rocks and gulleys, especially with people in control who may be aiming at them in contrast to nasa who keep there rovers as far away from anything scary as possible. 6 or 8 wheels even better but more cost and complication.

As always solely my opinion based purely on speculation.
 

bJN

bJN

Soldato
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Remove the need for wheels, make it fly. :D

Silliness aside, it's a great idea that I'd love to see come to fruition! Although my knowledge on the majority of subjects affiliated to this kind of thing will be limited at best!
 
Associate
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Not sure if this was suggested already, but if this is MSL inspired and if you want to get an idea for what the MSL people deal with both in terms of planning commands and movements and requiring a certain level of autonomy for the rover, then program/engineer into it a recieve buffer that allows ignoring for 14 minutes anything that comes in and a send buffer that allows 14 minute delay of anything sending out. That should all be effected on the rover itself so there's no way to cheat and switch to realtime at any time.

As for the autonomy, it could have minimal ability to avoid getting stuck. No need to go all out with that necessarily. It could have purely mechanical "sensors" instead of much more complex optical sensors.

That adds a lot of challenge to it, but then those of you involved in making this happen can only rely to an extent on what's already been done by RC hobbyists.

And even better, if it could be parachuted in to the location :)

Great idea :cool:
 
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When they control it on mars I wonder how much the delay is from when the press the command on earth to the Vehicle moving on Mars.
 
Soldato
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£150 mini wind turbine or make one ourselfs

A wind turbine is basically an electric motor being run in reverse, so that it produces a current rather than consumes it.

I'm sure you could build one (and a regulator/battery charging circuit) for <£10.

Also, -10 is not really an extreme temperature. None of the electronics would have any problems other than maybe the batteries. I think you'd be best going for a winter launch when there is snow about. That would give you a much smoother surface to move around on and wouldnt be any problem if your using tank tracks anyway.


*Subscribed to thread :)
 
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Caporegime
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A wind turbine is basically an electric motor being run in reverse, so that it produces a current rather than consumes it.

I'm sure you could build one (and a regulator/battery charging circuit) for <£10.

i think it's the gearing that is expensive though.
 
Associate
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This looks like an interesting project. I am a fairly experienced c programmer and would be happy to help out on the coding side of the project when I have time.
 
Caporegime
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I'd love to help out a bit with this if I can, should have something useful to add as I've a background in mechatronics.

yeah great get the drunk Irish guy involved in building the remote controlled robot.

this will end in one of two ways

1) A drunken wiring mistake causes the robot to go ona killing spree
2) everyone gets shot by MI5 at launch day because they suspect an IRA plot



we're dooomed dooooooomed!
 
Soldato
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yeah great get the drunk Irish guy involved in building the remote controlled robot.

this will end in one of two ways

1) A drunken wiring mistake causes the robot to go ona killing spree
2) everyone gets shot by MI5 at launch day because they suspect an IRA plot



we're dooomed dooooooomed!

FYI I've worked on automated/assisted driving systems and none of them blew up in the past.

Well, technically didn't blow up though there may have been some smoke.

Besides, it's only Wales, not like anyone would miss it if it did get blown up :p
 
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