Open Source Rover Gets An Update For Easier Building

September 16, 2023 by Lewin Day 9 Comments

Once upon a time, NASA-JPL put out a design for an open-source rocker-bogie rover. It was an impressive and capable thing, albeit a little expensive and difficult to build. Now, the open source community has dived in and refreshed the design, making it cheaper and more accessible than ever before.

Many parts of the original design have either become prohibitively expensive, gone out of stock, or been discontinued entirely. The new version, developed by the community that formed around the project, focuses on using off-the-shelf parts to bring costs down. Where the original design could cost as much as $3000 to build, the new model slashes that bill almost in half. It also eliminates any need for anything custom fabricated, with no machined or 3D printed parts required.

Other optimizations include cutting the rover’s head out from the basic model, as it’s not necessary for a great deal of applications. There is also better fluid and dust ingress protection, and improved serviceability. The entire rover model can also be loaded in OnShape for those desiring to inspect it or make their own modifications.

Parts lists are on GitHub for those desiring to build their own. Alternatively, check out the original design to learn more. Video after the break.

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Rocker Bogie Suspension: The Beloved Solution To Extra-Planetary Rovers

September 14, 2023 by Lewin Day 18 Comments

When navigating the vast and unpredictable expanses of outer space, particularly on the alien terrains of distant planets, smart engineering often underlies every major achievement. A paramount example of this is the rocker bogie suspension system. It’s an integral component of NASA’s Mars rovers and has become an iconic feature in its own right. Its success has seen the design adopted by the Indian space program and thousands of hobbyists in turn.

So, what exactly is it that makes rocker bogie suspension such a compelling design solution? Let’s dive into the engineering that makes these six-wheeled wonders so special.

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Stair Climbing Rover Gets Up With Rocker Bogies

February 18, 2023 by Lewin Day 8 Comments

Doctor Who eventually made light of the fact that the Daleks were critically impaired when it came to staircases. This rover from [WildWillyRobots] doesn’t share that issue, thanks to a smart suspension design.

The rover itself is built using 3D printed components for everything from the enclosure, to the suspension system, as well as the wheels themselves. It uses a rocker-bogie design, which NASA designed for Mars-bound rovers and we often see copied for terrestrial applications. Gear motors are used for their plentiful torque, and they are placed directly within the wheels. Servos allow the individual wheels to be steered, allowing the rover to crab sideways and perform zero-radius turns.

The rocker-bogie setup does a great job of keeping the rover’s wheels touching the ground, even over rough terrain. It readily tackles a random pile of bricks with ease, in a way that many four-wheeled designs would struggle to match. Given its trials on Mars, it’s easy to call the rocker-bogie setup a thoroughly-proven design.

We’ve featured plenty of other rocker-bogie builds in the past; many of them are 3D printed as well.

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Student Rover Explores The Backyard In Tribute

August 21, 2020 by Al Williams 3 Comments

Three students were a little sad when NASA’s Opportunity rover went silent after 15 years on the Martian surface. So they decided to build their own rover inspired by Opportunity to roam their backyards using an off-the-shelf robot chassis, a Raspberry Pi, and the usual list of parts like motors, H-bridges, and batteries.

Like the real rover, the vehicle uses a rocker-bogie system, although it is a little less complex than the version NASA sent blasting off towards the Red Planet. The plucky vehicle comes complete with miniature solar panels to recharge its onboard battery, courtesy of some dollar-store garden lights. A pair of videos after the break show how the rover is controlled, as well as the view sent back from its onboard camera.

The rover ran a simulated Mars mission as part of a school project where it had to find an object and transmit an image of it back to home base, and by the looks of it, is was a rousing success. But the young explorers aren’t resting on their laurels, and are already working on a second version of their exploration vehicle that can operate in inclement weather and includes some new tools such as a robotic arm and infrared illumination for low-light imaging.

We’ve seen plenty of Mars rover clones in the past, but there’s always room for more. Of course, if you’re looking for something a bit easier to start with, you can always go the LEGO route.

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The Open Source Mars Rover, One Year Later

July 2, 2020 by Tom Nardi 18 Comments

As the name implies, here at Hackaday we strive to bring you interesting projects every single day. But that doesn’t necessarily mean a project only gets one day to grace these storied pages. Quite the opposite, in fact. We’re always happy to revisit a project and find out how far it’s evolved since we last crossed paths with it, especially when the creators themselves reach out to give us an update.

Which is exactly what happened when [Jakob Krantz] recently wrote in to get us up to speed on this incredible open source rover project. We first saw this 3D printed Curiosity inspired robot a little less than a year ago, and at that point it was essentially just a big box with the distinctive NASA rocker-bogie suspension bolted on. Now it not only looks a lot closer to the Martian rovers that inspired it, but it’s also learned a number of new tricks that really take this project to the next level.

The articulated head and grabber arm don’t just help sell the Curiosity look, they’re actually functional. [Jakob] notes that he doesn’t have kinematics integrated yet, so moving the arm around is more for show than practical application, but in the future it should be able to reach out and grab objects. With the new cameras in the head, he’ll even be able to get a first person view of what he’s picking up.

Last year [Jakob] was using a standard RC transmitter to drive the rover around, but he’s since put together a custom controller that’s truly a thing of beauty. It uses an ESP32 and LoRa module to communicate with matching hardware inside the rover, as well as a smartphone clipped onto the top that’s displaying telemetry and video over WiFi. The controller is actually its own separate project, so even if you aren’t in the market for a scaled down Mars rover, its controller could come in handy for your next robotics project.

Presumably the multi-mission radioisotope thermoelectric generator (MMRTG) on the back of the rover is just pretend….but with this guy, we’re not so sure. Give him another year, and who knows.

3D Printed Rover Enjoys Long Walks On The Beach

August 27, 2019 by Tom Nardi 13 Comments

More than a few hackers have put in the considerable time and effort required to build a rover inspired by NASA’s robotic Martian explorers, but unfortunately even the most well funded home tinkerer can’t afford the ticket to send their creation offworld. So most of these builds don’t journey through anything more exciting than a backyard sandbox. Not that we can blame their creators, we think a homebrew rover will look just as cool in your living room as it would traipsing through a rock quarry.

But the DIY rover status quo clearly wasn’t sufficient for [Jakob Krantz], who decided the best way to test his new Curiosity-inspired rover was to let it frolic around on the beach for an afternoon. But judging by the video after the break, his beefy 3D printed bot proved to be more than up to the task; powering through wildly uneven terrain with little difficulty.

Beyond a few “real” bearings here and there, all of the key components for the rover are 3D printed. [Jakob] did borrow a couple existing designs, like a printable bearing he found on Thingiverse, but for the most part he’s been toiling away at the design in Fusion 360 and using images of the real Curiosity rover as his guide.

Right now, he’s controlling the rover with a standard 6 channel RC receiver. Four channels are mapped to the steering servos, and a fifth to the single electronic speed control that commands the six wheel motors. But he’s recently added an Arduino to the rover which will eventually be in charge of interpreting the RC commands. This will allow more complex maneuvers with fewer channels, such as the ability to rotate in place.

We’re proud to count our very own [Roger Cheng] among the rover wrangling hackers of the world. An entire community has sprung up around his six-wheeled Sawppy, and the knowledge gained during its design and construction could be applicable to any number of other projects.

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Hackaday Podcast 012: Nearly Perpetual Motion, Mars Rover Carries Kid, And Doc Brown’s Cat Feeder

March 29, 2019 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

Editors Elliot Williams and Mike Szczys catch up on the past week in hackerdom. It seems as if we’re in a golden age of machine building as an incredible rocker-bogie rover is built to transport a child and mechanical simplicity automates the wet cat food dispensing process. We marvel at the ability to use G-code to decorate eggs (them being curvy in more than one direction and all). The we contemplate the ability to build and start a motor which will continue to run long after your own life ends. And perhaps it’s time to add more layers to your PCB design playbook.

Take a look at the links below if you want to follow along, and as always, tell us what you think about this episode in the comments!

Direct download (60 MB or so.)