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rover prototype is proceeding, and may be used in the
YURT rover in future as well.
5 CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, we briefly introduced three distinct
space engineering research projects at York, namely
micro-rover development, the York University Rover
Team’s larger scale Mars rover prototype design and
a 1U CubeSat-based nanosatellite design. In all three
distinct research projects, we aim to design mobile
platforms with a level of autonomy and simplicity
with distinct mission objects for each project. The
micro-rover is designed for Mars environment with
full autonomy and redundancy. The YURT rover
is designed each year to complete at the University
Rover Challenge with minimal autonomy, but with
flexibility for four separate tasks. The 1U CubeSat
is designed to demonstrate nanosatellite technologies
currently under development at York University.
The common design approach we have taken in
developing the above research platforms is the mod-
ularity and expandability in hardware and software
design. We described a centralized control topology,
in particular OBC design and communication proto-
cols, and introduced a subsystem design methodology
making use of highly-integrated commercial-off-the-
shelf (COTS) parts and low-cost components. In mo-
bile robots, the motor controllers provide selectable
brush or brushless DC motor management, while in a
satellite platform, the same design approach can drive
reaction wheels. A software architecture based on
open componentswas also developedwith modularity
in mind. In mobile platforms, mesh networking and
the JAUS structure was adopted to accommodate ef-
ficient point-to-point messaging communications. In
future, we plan to implement the proposed modular
design concept in other projects such as unmanned
aerial vehicles and distributed sensors for navigation,
mapping and remote sensing applications.
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