College of Engineering Unit:
An automatic antenna alignment system designed for the OSU Robotics Club Mars Rover team to improve communication (signal strength, data integrity) between rover and control station. The system is intended for use during competition in all-weather, all-terrain conditions and over distances of several dozen meters. It will mount OSURC's current Ubiquity AM-2G15-120 sector antenna into a turntable mechanism custom built from lightweight aluminium and plastic. Command and control is provided by custom stepper motor control, encoder, and GPS electronics. GPS data is sent from the OSURC rover by LoRa (Long Range) radio link and processed by a custom Python algorithm into commands. These are sent over USB as UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter) serial and operated on by the turntable control electronics. Key points were the integration of multiple electrical and software platforms since the project used RP2040s, Arduino, and an Intel NUC which supported C++, and Python code. These differences were bridged using common interfaces such as UART. Another was the LoRa radio link between rover and control station since the system could not rely on the AM-2G15-120 antenna's limited field of view for reliable GPS data transmission. As such, the LoRa protocol and omni antennas are used. Key challenges were determining the tracking method, which initially was classical triangulation or doppler methods, designing the electronics, and designing the mechanical systems.
Project Website(s):
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
 Project Documentation | 7.48 MB |