The rover control and the battery health system for satellite

Competition Introduction:

The Queen’s Space Engineering Team is a group of 60 students at Queen’s University.

The team was established in 2006, and also established the first ever undergraduate

space conference in Canada in 2012. We build stand-alone, off-the-grid mobile

platform rovers, as well as satellite prototypes for international competition.

In 2016 our team placed first in Canada at the University Rover Challenge (URC) in

Utah. The URC requires multiple tasks to be completed in the Utah desert:

Sample return: Scientific Evaluations with onboard instruments

Determine likelihood of biological life

Astronaut Assistance: Collect objects from the field and deliver them to locations

Travelling by GPS coordinates

Equipment Servicing: Collect objects from the field and deliver them to locations

Travelling by GPS coordinates

Terrain Traversing: Test of the ruggedness and route-finding ability of the rovers

Soft sandy areas, rough stony areas, rock and boulder fields, vertical drops potentially

in excess of 0.5m, and steep slopes in excess of 60°

Competition related photos:

Project Introduction:

QSET needs two PCBs built for the rover. Additionally, QSET requires PCBs for our cube satellite once they begin their design implementation stage.

1. PCB for rover control

Allows better interfacing between a raspberry pi and the motor controllers, as well as reading the data from some of our autonomous sensors.

2. Abattery health system

Used for managing the battery health on the rover. Mostly ensuring the cells are balanced and at an appropriatevoltage.

D. Project Details

The team already has PCB designs constructed that represent our ideal products. The

first image is the PCB that would be used for the rover control, the second being for

the battery health system.