An Unmanned Tracked Vehicle for Snow Research Applications

Lightweight robotic vehicles can be designed for over-snow mobility to carry out a variety of snow and glacier related studies like carrying out GPR survey of cracks & crevasses over ice crusts that cannot support foot travel, for collecting snow samples and carrying out sub-surface experiments with penetrometers on terrain that are dangerous for human, GPS mapping of avalanche debris etc. Sinkage, resistance to snow compaction, loss of traction and ingestion of snow into the driving system are some of the challenges that an unmanned lightweight tracked vehicle faces in snowbound terrain. In present work, a lightweight and unmanned remotely operated vehicle (ROV) is conceptualized and developed as a technological solution. In this paper design and features of this vehicle, named HimBot, are presented along with the results obtained from tests carried over snow at Solang Nullah field observatory of SASE in February 2013. The outcome of this work will help in developing an optimized design of an ROV for over snow mobility for a variety of applications

3D Printed Packaging of Photovoltaic Cells for Energy Autonomous Embedded Sensors

Most robotic/prosthetic hands lack the ability to harvest energy, and as a result they rely on the batteries to provide the required energy for their operation. Recently solar cells have been explored to meet the energy requirements. However, most solar cells are brittle, and their chances of getting damaged during robotic operation are high. The work presented in this paper addresses this challenge through a transparent 3D printed package covering three photovoltaic cells. The package protects the cells from impact and prevents dust accumulation while ensuring minimal loss of light reaching the cells. The effect of the protective 3D printed cover on the performance of photovoltaic panel have been evaluated. This solar cell package is integrate on a 3D printed robotic hand to harvest energy from the environmental illumination and utilizes it to power the small peripheral electronic and sensing components on the hand

Path planning and energy management of solar-powered unmanned ground vehicles

Many of the applications pertinent to unmanned vehicles, such as environmental research and analysis, communications, and information-surveillance and reconnaissance, benefit from prolonged vehicle operation time. Conventional efforts to increase the operational time of electric-powered unmanned vehicles have traditionally focused on the design of energy-efficient components and the identification of energy efficient search patterns, while little attention has been paid to the vehicle\u27s mission-level path plan and power management. This thesis explores the formulation and generation of integrated motion-plans and power-schedules for solar-panel equipped mobile robots operating under strict energy constraints, which cannot be effectively addressed through conventional motion planning algorithms. Transit problems are considered to design time-optimal paths using both Balkcom-Mason and Pseudo-Dubins curves. Additionally, a more complicated problem to generate mission plans for vehicles which must persistently travel between certain locations, similar to the traveling salesperson problem (TSP), is presented. A comparison between one of the common motion-planning algorithms and experimental results of the prescribed algorithms, made possible by use of a test environment and mobile robot designed and developed specifically for this research, are presented and discussed