Rover Swarm

In 2018-2019, the Rover Swarm team set out to develop, build, and create software for a small swarm of miniature rovers to accomplish lab-based planetary exploration tasks.

This project consisted of hardware and software sub-projects. On the hardware side, the overall goal was to design and build a low-cost miniature rover platform. The rover needed the ability to move around (at least on a flat floor), collect data that simulates the scientific goals of a planetary rover, and communicate with other rovers in its swarm, and a central data collector.  The software team aimed to first implement basic motion and sensing capabilities on a single rover. Then, they moved onto implementing communication between the rovers. Each rover was equipped with a small radio and an accompanying library to transmit streams of data. Although the team ultimately ran into difficulties, specifically in the realm of this inter-rover communication, and failed to accomplish its goal, this project further expanded the purview of the YUAA and laid the groundwork for the subsequent years of rover research projects.