Autonomous and remotely-controlled vehicles are important tools used for exploring terrestrial planets and planet-like moons. In this section, you will design, build, and test a rover system capable of collecting microscale ore particles from an emulated planet surface and transferring particle samples to the onboard microscope for material characterization. You will learn:

• • Knowledge and technical skills from a variety of engineering disciplines, including Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, Computer Science, Robotics, and Optics

  • Concept proposal, design, fabrication, system integration, operation testing, data analysis, documentation, and presentation of project results

  • Fundamental hardware and software tools, CAD, 3D printing, image/video editing

Term Project: 

Design, modify, and build a robotic rover with a mini-size optical microscope, robot arm, and set of optoelectronic/electronic devices

Labs: 

Soldering irons, oscilloscopes, transmitters/receivers, Arduino microcontrollers, and internet-of-things (IoT) devices