MSI Mars Rover

The MSI Mars Rover is a six wheel mobility system, on which various subsystems are integrated. The mobility system consists of rocker-bogie suspension system and four wheel steering system. The steering system allows for sharper and easier turns on tough terrains and also enables on the spot rotation for the rover. The various subsystems hosted by the rover includes – robotic arm (coupled with a digger and a gripper mechanism), communication system, feedback systems, bio-science payload, soil collection system and the supporting control and circuit systems.

The robotic arm has three degrees of freedom, which is further enhanced by the two end effectors which can be attached to the arm – one for digging soil samples and other for gripping objects. The digger end-effector has an additional 1 dof to enable the digging of soil samples. The gripper end-effector has 2 degrees of freedom for gripping and holding objects.

The feedback systems include two cameras for visual feedback, GPS for navigation and IMU for orientation feedback. One camera is used for navigation and the other one to observe the soil prior to collection of soil samples.

The rover is linked with the base station through 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz communication links. The user commands and feedback are channelled through the 900 MHz link, while the 2.4 GHz communication link provides the video feedback from the two cameras to the base station.

The Bio-science payload consists of a reflectance spectrometer for preliminary analysis of soil samples for potential presence of cyanobacteria in the soil. The preliminary analysis is used to determine the best soil sample collected.

In addition to the on-board systems, a base station GUI enables user interaction with the communications system for rover control and obtaining feedback.