Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Project Summary

By: Peiyuan Xu (Project Manager) Approved by Peiyuan Xu (Project Manager) Approved by Xiong Lee (System Engineer) Table of Contents Executive Summary Project Objectives The spring 2016 Pathfinder Rover was inspired by NASA’s MARs Exploration Rover-“Sojourner”. The profile for this semester’s project is to imitate the design of “Sojourner” Rover to prototype a new generation […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Arxterra Servo Control for Pan and Tilt

By: Xiong Lee (Mission, System and Test) Table of Contents Objective: After test and calibrating our servos from the earlier blog post found here, we then needed the servos to run through the arxterra app.  The arxterra app already has a built in button to control panning and tilting. All we need to do is […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Mission Profile and Project Objective Update

By: Peiyuan Xu (Project Manager) Table of Contents Mission Profile Update The team received the PDR debrief from meeting with the customer, student assistant and the president. One of the comments they had was that the mission profile was unclear. The team then develop a new mission profile which will clarify the confusion of the […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: System Block Diagram & Interface Matrix

By: Xiong Lee (Missions, Systems and Test)   System Block Diagram   The picture above shows a block diagram of our pathfinder. These are the hardware that we are using to run our pathfinder. From this diagram, it shows how many pins we are allocating for each hardware. For example, we are using TX, RX, […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Software Design

By: Juan Acosta (Electronics & Control – MCU Subsystem and Firmware)   Table of Contents Software System Block Diagram: The figure above depicts the software side of the Pathfinder. First, commands will be sent through Bluetooth and received through Serial communication ports on the Arduino Mega. Then the Command Handler will decode the telemetry packets being […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Design and Manufacturing – Chassis Selection Through the Iterative Design Loop

By: Lindsay Levanas (Design and Manufacturing) Table of Contents Introduction Although all previous posts regarding Spring 2016 Pathfinder’s chassis have focused on the rocker bogie suspension system design, the use of a Wild Thumper chassis was also considered and so it is worth documenting the iterative design loop that lead to the final product. This […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Design and Manufacturing – PCB Layout

By: Lindsay Levanas (Design and Manufacturing) Table of Contents Introduction This report will serve to document how the Spring 2016 Pathfinder’s PCB layout was designed in EAGLE7.5.0 Light. Reference to the PCB schematic outlined in Spring 2016 Pathfinder: PCB System Schematic1 will be mentioned, as well as safety precautions from outside sources. Note that all […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: PCB System Schematic

By: Juan Acosta (Electronics & Control – MCU Subsystem and Firmware) Tuong Vu     (Electronics & Control – Sensors, Actuators, and Power) Table of Contents Introduction: Project Pathfinder required the use of an Arduino Mega, VNH5019 motor shield, PCA9685 Servo PWM Controller, two HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensors, two servos, six DC motors, HC-06 Bluetooth Module, […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Subsystem Design

By: Juan Acosta (E&C – MCU Subsystem & Firmware) Table of Contents Fritzing Diagram The fritzing schematic above depicts the circuit we used for testing the Wild Thumper Chassis’ motors, batteries, ultrasonic sensors, headlight L.E.D.s, servo driver along with servos, the motor shield along with the six motors driving the rover, and the Bluetooth module. Earlier […]

Spring 2016 Pathfinder: Project Tango Bluetooth API

by: Peiyuan Xu (Project Manager) with contribution from: Qianyi Tang (CSULB Computer Science Major Graduate Student) Table of Contents Introduction: In our Project Tango system block diagram, one of the software module is to develop Bluetooth API in the Point Cloud App command sequence. This blog post is to show the approach of modifying point […]