The Grads go to the Olympus Rover Trials

Back in November 2021, a group of intrepid graduates accepted the call from the UK Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (UKSEDS) and gathered to work on a project that would take them to MARS! (Via Stevenage and Harwell)

The first critical task at hand was to come up with a name. After much deliberation, it was settled on "They See Me Roving" or TSMR for short. Then after that most difficult of choices, we had to design a Rover capable traversing the terrain of Mars and safely retrieve a set of samples. Working against strict limits on weight, size, and numerous other requirements, this was no easy feat. The graduates organised themselves into groups dealing with different Work Packages including: Control & Electronics, Power, Autonomy & Software, Propulsion & Chassis, and Manipulator. Leading the effort was Jan Sprengel as Project Manager, who kept all the groups in check and kept a keen eye on what needed to be done and when it needed to be done by, putting our Systems Engineering training to good use.

By December, the graduates had a Preliminary Design to submit to UKSEDS for review. The result of much research and design work, it was a bit rough but showed we had a solid concept of the rover.

CAD model of the TSMR Rover

The judges at UKSEDS then greenlit the team to continue to a final design. A lot of features were refined as the design faced the realities of component procurement and manufacture. Faced with a limited budget, it was decided to construct the rover from 3D printed parts on-site. As parts were prototyped and improved, the rover ended up being manufactured in stages, which resulted in the “distinctive” colour scheme of the final design.

The actual rover, with trademark multicolour aesthetic, settling well into its natural environment of "Mars"

Held together by many M5 screws and the hopes and dreams of the graduate team, the rover made its way to Stevenage on the 6th of August for performance testing at the Airbus Mars Yard in Stevenage. There were 9 teams competing to score the highest with their rover, each with their own approaches, including one made simply from cardboard. However, upon initial set-up, it was found that our rover was facing technical issues. After a day of troubleshooting the electrical and control system, we tried hardwiring a connection over ethernet cable, yet the rover just sat stoically at the start line, despite it having worked brilliantly the previous day. Sadly, another example of the well-known Murphy's Law at play.

We then sat on the observation deck and watched as other rovers similarly faced a gauntlet of technical issues including getting themselves stuck in sand, being unable to climb the rocks, and difficulties with manipulating the sample collection tools. Eventually, even the best performing rover only picked up a single sample before returning. We nevertheless cheered all their brave efforts and took away many lessons learnt on rover design. 

Some of the elite TSMR rover team of graduate engineers with their rover (front), and the slightly bigger Airbus rover (back)

The next day was spent at RAL Space over at the Harwell Campus. The big event of the day was a vibration test where the rovers were affixed to a test rig and shaken rigorously. A slow-motion video of the test shows our rover bravely held out for a long time, but eventually lost the manipulator, and then a wheel.

The rover is bolted down to the test rig, to be given the much-feared "vibe test"

Overall, the team was very proud to have made a rover on such a short timescale, and even though it didn’t manage to move on the Mars Yard, we got a lot out of the process of planning, designing, and building the rover from start to finish in only a few months. Even so, the design still was commended by the judges. They particularly liked the custom PCB, the inventive “sand-sweeper” sample collection tool, and the awesome digital twin model of the rover (please see the video below), so they awarded the team with the ORT Innovation Prize!

The ORT Innovation Prize - a 1:1 scale 3D-printed model of a Mars sample tube 

What next for our little rover? The team are hoping to repair the damage, get it better than before, and use it to showcase our brilliant engineering efforts on Outreach events. So, the rover will rise again!

 

 

Playing on the RIFT

The CCFE (Culham Centre for Fusion Energy) graduate scheme includes doing a project outside of the normal placements. It allows the graduates to gain skills that otherwise wouldn’t necessarily be accessible. For example, physicists might be able to do some engineering, and engineers might be able to do some programming etc.

The RIFT (Remote Interactive Feedback Technology) project will be one of the most fun graduate projects when it is completed, as it will create a public facing interactive demonstration of the feedback technology used on the remote handling manipulator known as Mascot. Remote handling is used on JET (Joint European Torus) for in-vessel maintenance and upgrade operations because the radioactive vessel poses a risk to humans. Mascot (the Slave) is set-up to work with a controller (the Master), the operator manipulates the Master and the Slave mimics the action. When the Slave reacts against an object the force of that is mirrored back through the Master allowing the operator to feel the object as if they were touching it. This is hugely beneficial for JET because it means the torus can be accessed without exposing any workers to radiation. Any replacements, repairs or adjustments that are required should be possible. One of the training steps for Mascot operators is to use this technology to play Jenga remotely, relying on the high level of touch needed for the game.

The goal of the project is to promote the current remote handling capabilities at CCFE as well as the future remote handling centre of excellence known as RACE which is being developed on site. This goal will be achieved by creating an interactive demonstration of this feedback technology.

To demonstrate the Mascot technology we will be using two relatively low cost haptic devices called Novint Falcons normally used as PC gaming controllers. Haptic devices allow a level of force feedback that creates the feeling of actually interacting with something which you see on a screen. To a certain extent touch screen phones use haptic feedback when a button is pressed and the phone vibrates. The Falcons will be set-up in the same configuration as the Mascot and its controller, in a Master-Slave configuration which is standard for haptic feedback loops.

We will then think of some fun games to play with this set up, which the public will be able to try when they visit CCFE. We might get to play Jenga like the real Mascot or at least move some objects around remotely.

There is a dream team of graduates working on this endeavour from different backgrounds. We have Mechanical and Electrical engineers and general day-dreamers just like the original Italian teams that would have created the first Mascot back in the 60s. The team have interests in programming, electronics, haptic feedback, and remote handling.

The project is still in its early stages but with a little luck and a lot of push this project could be up and running soon. Then we can all play remote Jenga, just like the Mascot operators do in training to develop their coordination in a low risk situation.

Watch this space for future updates...

Project team:

·         Project Manager/Mechanical Engineer – Keelan Keogh

·         Control Engineer – Jibin James

·         Mechanical Engineer – Jason Hess

·         Electrical Engineer – Steven Wray

·         Electrical Engineer – Zain Ul-Abidin

Author: Keelan Keogh

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