ASTRA
About ASTRA
Adaptable Service Transport and Research Apparatus (ASTRA) is a team of 21 engineering and computer science students developing a rover for the University Rover Challenge. Founded in February of 2020, the team has worked hard for two years to design, build, and test our rover. The project involves challenging multi-disciplinary work in mechanical and electrical engineering, embedded programming, biology, chemistry, and optical physics. ASTRA is open to any and all students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Keep reading to learn more about our rover!
Interested in joining ASTRA? Contact the team lead, Shelby Tull, at smt0020@uah.edu OR...
Left to Right: Thomas Bennett, Aiden St. Hillaire, Shelby Tull, Areeb Mohammed, Victoria Tarpley, Andrew Adams, Tristan Carter, Jacob Keese, Michaela Tarpley, Peter Bowers, Michael Sorrell, Alex DiBenio, Arnav Maroju
Meet Our Rover
For our rover, we took a modular approach with the design. This means that we can swap different modules on and off the rover in order to complete different missions.
Rover Base
ASTRA's rover base consists of a chassis made from welded aluminum tubing and an aluminum rocker suspension system. An undamped suspension was chosen in order to provide a steady platform for our robot arm as the arm completes tasks. The rover's wheels are made from 3D-printed thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), which is a compliant material that enables shock absorption and improved traction.
Biosensor
For the science mission, the biosensor module is installed onto the chassis of the rover. The biosensor utilizes a vacuum with a cyclonic separator to take samples on-board the rover. The sample is then tested for protein, chlorophyll, and carotenoids. For protein testing, a copper (ii) sulfate test is administered. Meanwhile, an in-house spectrometer was constructed in order to detect carotenoids and chlorophyll. In the future, the spectrometer may also be used to detect ATP with a luminescence test.
Robot Arm
ASTRA's robot arm is constructed from stainless steel, low-carbon steel, titanium, carbon fiber tubing, and various 3D-printed parts. The arm has six axes and utilizes inverse kinematics that implements resolved rate control for intuitive operation. The end effector features 3D-printed grippers made from TPU that enable compliance with objects.
Autonomous Navigation
For autonomous navigation, the rover utilizes a front-facing ZED camera in order to generate a map of the terrain. This enables the rover to detect obstacles. An on-board GPS provides data with an accuracy within 3 meters, and, with the ZED camera's magnetometer, enables the rover to navigate to GPS coordinates.
Communication
For high-bandwidth transmission, a 2.4 GHz radio is used. Meanwhile, a 900 MHZ link is used for backup communication.
ASTRA's 2022 System Acceptance Review:
The University Rover Challenge
The University Rover Challenge (URC) is a collegiate engineering competition that takes place at the Mars Desert Research Station each summer.
Four Missions
Science Mission:
The rover must conduct on-board science experiments to determine the presence or absence of life, extant or extinct, within several soil and rock samples. Extant life includes living or recently dead organisms; samples containing extant life will still contain biomarkers such as protein or ATP.
Extreme Retrieval and Delivery Mission:
A series of objects of varying weights and sizes must be picked up in the field and delivered to a specified location by the rover. The maximum expected object mass is 5 kg.
Equipment Servicing Mission:
The rover will perform several dexterous operations in a mock-up equipment maintenance situation. Tasks include typing on a keybpard, opening a drawer, pressing a button, inserting a USB stick, using a screwdriver, and manipulating a joystick.
Autonomous Navigation Mission:
The rover is given a set of GPS coordinates for a location near a gate, which is marked with AR tags. The rover must navigate autonomously to the GPS coordinates, detecting and avoiding obstacles along the way. Once the rover arrives at the location designated by the coordinates, it must find the AR tags that indicate the gate and then drive between the markers.
The images on the left illustrate the Concept of Operations (CONOPS) for each of the University Rover Challenge missions, in the same order in which they are described above.
Competition Timeline
October: Teams declare intent to compete and register for URC.
December: Teams submit a report for the preliminary design review (PDR) milestone. The PDR outlines budgetary, scheduling, and design plans.
March: Teams submit an System Acceptance Review (SAR) package that includes a report and a YouTube video. The goal of SAR is to demonstrate readiness for the competition by showcasing the rover's capabilities. Thirty-six teams are selected to compete in the field competition.
June: The field competiton takes place during the first week of June, where teams get to put their rovers to the ultimate test.
More information about the University Rover Challenge can be found here: http://urc.marssociety.org/home
Updates
March 26, 2022
Since the previous update, ASTRA has completed the design phase, constructed the rover, completed both the PDR and SAR competition milestones, and qualified for the competition! We are very excited to be heading to Utah this year!
January 31, 2021
ASTRA v0.01 has been built to program and test basic rover controls. Future iterations will be made to test different suspension designs, as well as test autonomous navigation software. The current prototype has a mass of 1.5 kg; the competition rover will be 30x heavier and 4x as large (in linear dimensions). Additionally, the team has made substantial progress in developing our science plan. Our plan includes spectrophotometry, which can be used to measure the presence of chlorophyll, protein, and ATP in a sample.
December 4, 2020
ASTRA has successfully completed the design review for our robot arm base. The arm base for our rover consists only of the first 4 axes. Our presentation can be found here: ASTRA Arm Base Design Review
August 10, 2020
ASTRA is currently working on a prototype rover. Over the summer, COVID-19 presented the team with unique challenges as we could only work remotely. In order to make progress under these circumstances, we have focused on work that can be accomplished at home, such as simulation programming, CAD design, schematic design, and astrobiology research.