The Lunabotics MQP represents an effort to compete in the NASA RMC Lunabotics competition. This requires the project objectives to follow NASA’s established rules and regulations for the competition. As the Lunabotics MQP is a legacy project, this year’s team worked on an inherited robot from last year's competition. The main focus for this year's team was to incorporate full autonomy into the competition cycle to earn more points on the scoring rubric and increase overall competition efficiency. Additionally, the team took on the task of redesigning several mechanical systems from last year to increase subsystem efficiency. In order to achieve the objective of full autonomy, the team went about designing a sensor integration process in order to measure every state of the robot with accuracy. This included the incorporation of encoder monitoring and hall effect sensors to measure the position of each subsystem relative to starting configuration. In addition, the task of full autonomy meant that the robot would need to perceive and interpret the competition field around it. This was done by integrating a D455i camera for both visual and stereo-depth processing. Visual processing was included to assist in the localization of the robot using April Tags, and Stereo depth processing was included to assist in obstacle avoidance capabilities. The problem presented from last year's mechanical design was an issue of ground clearance that made it difficult for the robot to drive. The main mechanical objective of the team included redesigning the storage and deposit subsystem used by last year's team to overcome the clearance issue. An additional redesign of the excavator subsystem was conducted so that it would require less time to reconfigure from the storage position used to meet size requirements and the fully extended digging configuration.

• This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator

• Le, Helen
• Moy, Joshua
• Hagearty, Patrick
• Ghosh, Roopsa
• Bullock, Carter
• Brattstrom, Alexander

Subject

• Industry
• Computing
• Innovation
• Learning
• Project-Based Learning
• Environment

Publisher

• Worcester Polytechnic Institute

Identifier

• 106561
• E-project-042723-161403

Keyword

• Computer Science
• Robot Operating System
• Lunar Rover
• Physics
• Autonomous Navigation
• Robotics

Advisor

• Stafford, Kenneth A.
• Kashuri, Hektor
• Cuneo, Joshua M.

Year

• 2023

UN Sustainable Development Goals

• Not Specified

Date created

• 2023-04-27

Resource type

• Major Qualifying Project

Major

• Robotics Engineering

Source

• E-project-042723-161403

Rights statement

• In Copyright

Last modified

• 2023-06-14