Welcome to the Home of The Great Mojave Rover
I am designing and 3D printing my Mars Rover, The Great Mojave Rover.
The Great Mojave Rover Project will be an autonomous rover built to survive the extreme conditions of the Mojave Desert. Inspired by JPL’s great little Mars rovers, I am taking my experiment to the extreme of leaving them in the desert for weeks and maybe months. I will relay instructions from my mission control and transmit the data via LTE mobile network.
At least, that is the ultimate goal. First, I will build many prototypes and experiments in the backyard. Once I get the rover operating well with WiFi in the backyard, I will venture into the world of LTE and find a place to host the rover in their vacant land.
This site contains information regarding my journey into building an autonomous rover. I plan on using a mixture of Raspberry Pi and Arduino microcontrollers. I have divided the site into my Blog, Knowledgebase, Parts List, and Build log.
This page talks about the project. The build log is where I share updates and what I have done. The Knowledge Base is where I will publish the How-to for you to build your own Rover. This is a work in progress, but it’s getting there.
About The Great Mojave Rover
The rover will utilize GPS, environmental sensors, remote communication, and cameras to create a 3D terrain of the explored area and 360º photos. Using a Raspberry Pi zero and Arduinos, the rover will be controlled remotely over the internet by a Raspberry Pi 4B base station (Mission Control).
The rover will be instructed to travel to a GPS location. It would then figure out how to get there using obstacle avoidance. It would also stop along the way to create a series of photos of the surrounding area. These photos would be compiled on board or transmitted to Mission Control for processing.
Instructions for the rover will be stored on the server until retrieved by the rover. If it receives no instructions, it will wait and try again later in the day. Future versions may start exploring on their own. The rover will also be designed to receive over-the-air updates from time to time.
(6) 2.5-watt 5V solar panels charging two sets of (4) 18650 batteries provide power to the Rover. One set of cells is for the compute module, the other for propulsion. The current plan is to keep each set of cells separate.
Mission Goals
- Survive unattended in the desert for weeks at a time.
- Create a 3D map of the terrain using photogrammetry.
- Explore the desert with no user input other than the destination.
- Send back photos and sensor data.
- Learn how to improve rover.
Construction
The Rover is primarily 3D printed in PETG. The suspension parts will be 8mm carbon fiber tubes. The camera mast will be a girder design using 2mm carbon fiber rods capable of collapsing and extending on command. The rover will lower the mast when driving to keep a lower center of gravity and use sonic sensors to avoid obstacles.
You can find the STL Files for Version 1.0 here: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2989944.
I am designing the Rover with help from the internet. The plan is to build two identical rovers. One for the mission and another for the sandbox. All development, testing, and software upgrades will be done in the sandbox first, then transmitted to the deployed rover. I am trying to reproduce the success JPL is having with their rovers.
What I have learned so far
- It’s not a race to the finish. I need to take my time if I want to successfully build this Rover powered by a Raspberry Pi or Arduino.
- Figuring out solar power is not that hard, but it takes a long time to test.
- Buying directly from China using a site like Banggood, although cheaper, takes a long time to get there, over 20 days. Except around Christmas time, when it takes about a week.
- If you have a Micro Center, go there to get your Raspberry Pi Zero Ws. You can pick on one for $5.00 once they start coming back in stock.
- If you need more inspiration, please check out Beatty Robotics.