This document outlines the requirements for the rover to be able to perform well in the 2022 URC competition.

See rules for more details:

Open

2021 Competition Missions

1. Science Mission

   1. Teams need to be able to investigate multiple sites of mineralogical and biological interest within a 0.8 km radius of the start gate

   2. Using the on-board science package on the rover, teams must determine the absence or presence of life, either extinct or extant, for designated samples

   3. The rover may user cameras or other passive instruments to investigate the area, and may dig using mechanical methods

   4. The rover must have a life detection capability instrument of the team's choosing

   5. Samples must be investigated and analyZED on-site using equipment aboard the rover

   6. Soil may be removed from the sample site, but rock samples must not be removed or altered

   7. Any chemicals used on board, including water or reaction products, must follow a no spill policy and be contained within the rover

   8. After collecting samples and performing onboard analysis, teams must prepare a 10-15 minute presentation for the judges discussion conclusions for each site regarding the presence or absence of life, and whether or not life is extant or extinct. Presentation must also include the meaning of data collected with respect to the habitability potential, the geology of the site (past and present) and implications of the site being suitable for life.

   9. Teams will be given between 30 and 45 minutes to collect data on the rover

2. Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Mission

   1. Traverse a wide variety of terrain, no further than 1 km from the start gate

   2. Terrain includes soft sandy areas, rough stony areas, rocks and boulder fields, vertical drops and steep slopes

   3. Might be out of direct line of sight for portions of the course

   4. The rover will be required to pick up small lightweight hand tools (screwdriver, hammer, wrench), supply containers (toolbox, gasoline can) or rocks up to 5 kg in mass. All items will have graspable features no greater than 5 cm in diameter except the rocks.

   5. The rover will be required to pull one object by a rope over relatively flat ground (rope is no thicker than 15 mm in diameter, no more than 3 m in length, and the object will be less than 5 kg)

   6. Objects shall be picked up in the field and delivered to designated locations, with approx. GPS coordinates given

   7. total time on course will be between 30 and 60 minutes

3. Equipment Servicing Mission

   1. The rover shall travel up to 0.25 km across relatively flat terrain

   2. Pick up a cache container and transport to the lander rocket. Cache will have a handle of at least 10 cm long and not more than 5 cm in diameter. Cache will weigh less than 3 kg

   3. Open a drawer on the lander and insert cache into a close fitting space in the drawer and close the drawer

   4. Tighten captive screw to secure drawer. The screw will be a 5/16” Allen (hex) head. Teams may build the hex driver into the rover, or pick up the screwdriver provided.

   5. Teams may build the hex driver into the rover or pick up the screwdriver provided

   6. Undo a latch on a hinged panel of the lander and open the panel

   7. Type commands on a mechanical keyboard and follow directions on computer display

   8. Operate a joystick to direct an antenna while observing a gauge

   9. Pick up and insert a USB memory stick into a USB (type A) slot on the lander

   10. Push buttons, flip switches, turn knobs

   11. Teams will have between 20 and 45 minutes to complete the mission

4. Autonomous Navigation Mission

   1. Rover will need to traverse autonomously between posts or between gates across moderately difficult terrain

   2. Cumulative distance of all legs shall be no greater than 2 km

   3. Total time on course will be between 30 and 45 minutes

   4. Each post will have a larger 20 cm x 20 cm marker, 30-100 cm off the ground. Each gate will consist of a pair of posts 2-3 m apart. Each marker will display a black and white AR tag (see  https://wiki.ros.org/ar_track_alvar?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=markers0to8.png)

   5. Legs will increase in difficulty:

   6. Stage 1: 

      1. Leg 1: GPS coordinates of the post provided

      2. Leg 2: GPS coordinates of the post provided

      3. Leg 3: GPS coordinates up to 5m from the post. Rovers will need to autonomously detect AR tag on the post and drive to it

      4. Leg 4: Autonomously drive through a gate with posts 3 m appart

   7. Stage 2:

      1. Leg 5: GPS coordinates up to 10m from gate. A small autonomous search pattern may be required to locate the gate if gate is not initially detected

      2. Leg 6: GPS coordinates between posts provided, autonomous obstacle avoidance required

      3. Leg 7: GPS coordinates up to 10m from gate. Obstacle avoidance and autonomous route finding required

   8. LED indicator required on the back of the rover, visible in bright daylight that will signal:

      1. Red - Autonomous operation

      2. Blue - Teleoperation (Manual driving)

      3. Flashing Green - Successful completion of leg

   9. The rover's on-board systems are required to decide when it has reached a post or passed through a gate. The rover must then stop and signal completion of a leg using the LED indicator on the back of the rover. It must also display a message or signal on the operator's display for the control station judge to observe

   10. Operators may send a signal to the rover to abort the current attempt and autonomously return to the previous post/gate or GPS coordinate and stop within 10 m of it. Teleoperation is allowed but the team forfeits 50% of its points to that leg. No points deducted for autonomous return.

   11. While stopped at any post/gate/coordinate, teams may program the next leg and make changes to the control, but may not drive the rover

Competition Requirements

General

• Max budget is $18,000 USD (~$22,000 CAD). Includes components for the rover, rover modules, power sources, communications equipment, base station equipment and all command and control equipment. Does not apply to spare parts, tools and travel expenses.

• Rover must be a stand-alone, off the grid mobile platform. Tethered communication and power are not allowed. The primary platform may deploy any number of smaller sub-platforms.

• The rover must fit completely within a 1.2 m x 1.2 m box for weighing. It can fold to fit within the transport crate but may not be disassembled to do so.

• No vertical height limit (might change for 2022)

• Max deployable weight of the rover for any competition mission is 50 kg. The total mass for all fielded rover parts is 70 kg. Weight limit does not include any spares or tools used, but does include any items deployed by the rover such as sub-rovers, cameras and communication relays

• Air breathing propulsion systems are not permitted (combustion, hydrogen, etc.)

• For 2021, no airborne or lighter-than-air systems were allowed (might change for 2022)

• Rovers must have a kill switch that is readily accessible on the exterior of the rover (stops the rover's movements and cease all power draw)

• The team must be able to set up all necessary systems and be ready to compete in no more than 15 minutes

• The team must be able to disassemble all equipment in no more than 10 minutes

• Teams do not need to return to the start gate or collect any deployed items before the end of time for any of the missions

• Rover must have a robotic arm capable of performing dexterous operations

• Rovers shall be able to withstand these conditions and also light rain, but will not be expected to compete in heavy rain or thunderstorms.

• Field science expertise may be useful for some tasks such as identifying a type of rock

Communications

• The rover shall be operated remotely with wireless communications and no time delay (potentially out of line of sight)

• Communications methods must adhere to all applicable FCC regulations 

• Camera cannot be mounted on top of a base station antenna to obtain visual feedback

• Base station antenna limited in height to 3m

• Antenna bases much be located within 5 meters of the team's command station

• Any ropes or wires used for stabilization must be anchored within 10 meters of the command station

• All teams must bring at least 25 m of communications cables 

• Teams shall not use frequency bandwidths greater than 8 MHz

• Teams must be able to operate exclusively within the 3 following sub bands: 

  • 900-Low (902-910 MHz)

  • 900-Mid (911-919 MHz)

  • 900-High (920-928 MHz)

• Teams shall use center frequencies that correspond to channels 1-11 of the IEEE 802.11 standard for 2.4 GHz

• Teams shall not use frequency bandwidths greater than 22 MHz

• Teams will not use more than three channels in the 2.4 GHz band

• Teams are allowed to operate in bands outside of 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz

Table of Values - General

Table of Values - Communications

Table of Values - Science

Table of Values - Retrieval and Delivery

Table of Values - Equipment Servicing

Table of Values - Autonomy

Table of Penalties

Last Year's Feedback

What Worked:

What Didn't Work:

• Motor voltage consistency

• 360 degree continuous rotation wrist

Short Term Goals (~2months)

• WORKING ARM (TOP PRIORITY AFTER LOCKDOWN IS LIFTED)

• FW/SW test fixtures for the arm

  • test joint fixture (motor controller hooked up to a motor)

Feature Wish List

(Place all of the desired features here in bullet point format)

• Remote control of the rover over a short distance (using a controller directly connected to the rover without going through the antennas, similar to a rc car)

• Rail gun

• Easily deployable remote control station (like a briefcase which contains multiple screens and controllers to control the robot at a distance)

• Competition Unit With a Portable Toolbox and Spare Parts

• Deployable drone or mini rovers (if allowable by competition)

• Mock up testing facilities (elements to be included tbd)

• Joystick control of the robotic arm end-effector for maximum 3D control - 6-axis sensor like space mouse?

• Refine mechanical arm precision high enough to utilize high precision absolute encoder sponsors

• The ideal motor controller is an o-drive (for arm and drivetrain) with BLDC motors

• In rush current measurements and capacity measurements for the battery

• Custom gamepad controller

• Carbon fiber

• Underglow

• Paint job

• Status LEDs for power/board status

• Fastener inventory

• maybe a magnet on the arm(as a lot of the objects required to be picked up seem like metal)

• what if we had a real life model of the arm at the control station and moved that around to attain exact control of the actual arm

• (for autonomous mission), if not already being done, for autonomous return to the previous post could just trace back steps with recorded position data

Mechanical Requirements

(Place all of the requirements here in a bullet-point format)

• General Mechanical Requirements:

• Arm Requirements

• Drivetrain Requirements

  • Notes:

    • Consider how drivetrain style increases/reduces turning scrub

    • Look into swerve on wheels

• Chassis Requirements

• Vision Requirements

  -scrapping gimbal system

• Communications Requirements

  -look into antennae spacing on rover (more research tbd, but we probably need to optimize our antennae spacing to avoid interference)

• Science Requirements

Electrical Requirements

Arm

Drivetrain

Science

Gimbal

Base Station

Electrical Box

Misc.

Software/Firmware Requirements

Arm

• Safety checks

  • Current

  • Position

  • Limit switch

  • Velocity

• Joint-Level Limits

  • Max Acceleration  Limiting

  • Max Jerk Limiting

• End-effector Limits(IK Mode)

  • Max Acceleration Limiting

  • Max Jerk Limiting

• Control Modes

  • Joint Level:

    • Open-loop (controlling voltage duty cycle)

    • Velocity

    • Position

    • Cascaded Control to compensate for gravity and joint inertias

    • Mode switching between all control modes

  • End-effector level(IK):

    • Velocity

    • Position

    • Trajectory Following

  • Be able to move to predefined configuration

    • ex. press a gui button that moves arm to a home position

    • ex. press a gui button that moves arm to a position with low CG suitable for fast driving

• PID tuning

  • Run time tuning of parameters

  • Characterizing PID performance

    • Graphing out PID Step Responses

• GUIs:

  • Arm configuration viz

    • Bob wrote one for an old arm, but we could just use our urdf in rviz

  • Arm workspace viz

    • @Former user (Deleted)  wrote this thing that can visualize the arm's max reach. 

    • We can overlay this on a camera feed or something. or add a camera feed into rviz

Drivetrain

• Open loop control

• Velocity control

• Hold a position + and offset control?

Science

• Have a way of grabbing images from the video stream

Autonomy

• GUI to input list of GPS coordinates

  • should be able to start driving to fist coordinate before full list in input

• Drive to GPS coordinate

• spiral search to find AR tag

• drive towards AR tag

• Drive between AR tag posts (later stages)

• Have recovery behaviors for when rover is stuck (ie. in bush)

• have recovery behavior for when rover has lost comms (ie. backtrack back to last know position that has good comms)

• Occupancy grid/cost map based off of ZED2 point cloud

• Implementation details:

  • needs conversion to the correct format

  • TF tree from udrf

  • Behavior within ros2 nav2

  • point clouds from ZED

  • GPS and IMU data from vectornav

  • waypoints from gps gui input

  • AR tag locations from ar_track_alvar

Cameras

• ZED

  • Upgrade to 720 if possible

  • there's a package that does this already

  • Use ZED2

  • Stream left camera at VGA 15fps