Team Fighting Cardinals 2015

Lunabotics Systems Engineering Paper

Team Members
Damian Lajara
Adrian Chammorro
Ryan Mew
Matthew Khargie

Advisors
Daniel Phelps

1 Abstract
A mining robot was built for the Lunabotics Mining Competition held by the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA); this mining robot, also known as a Lunabot will then
be set to compete against other Lunabots in order to score points in various ways. While trying to score
points, the Lunabot must stay within the guidelines set forth by the competition. The competition will
require teams to research and build their own Lunabot in which multiple variables will be monitored
such as weight, energy consumed, Average Bandwidth, BP-1 gathered, and ability to control dust. A
design will be made using this research, where it will be prototyped, built, and tested. The Lunabot will
compete for points that will be put towards awards for innovation, automation and numerous others.
The competition was created to attract STEM majors as this competition requires an
understanding of these distinct fields. This competition also gives STEM majors the opportunity to
work together on a major project where team management is vital. NASA will then use any of the
designs presented as a proof of concept.

1.1 Introduction
Purpose statement
A robot must be built to the specifications requested by the NASA Lunabotics Mining
Competition. The robot must be able to avoid obstacles while traversing the terrain to excavate
and store BP-1. Using diverse mechanisms, it then must travel back to the starting point to
dump the BP-1 into a collection bin.
Motivation
Students can use the knowledge of their diverse STEM fields to pitch, design and build
their innovative ideas. The students will also be able to observe how their STEM colleagues
interact and work together. For example, computer science majors will collaborate with
engineers. Throughout the competition, they will gain the motivation to continue in their field of
study while having the chance to directly impact the industry.

Design philosophy
The competition's main source of points is gathered from the amount of BP-1 your
Lunabot can gather. However, you can lose points due to average bandwidth, mass and energy
consumed. With this in mind, we went after minimizing the amount of points lost. This led to
the idea of building a passive digging system, which would utilize the moving force of the bot
with the possibility of using a lightweight material.
2 Major Reviews
System requirements
A. The mining robot must pass a safety inspection and communications check. The mining
robot will be inspected during the practice days and before the start of each competition
attempt.
B. The mining robot must be able to deposit 10kg of BP-1 into the Collector Bin.
C. Be able to navigate the Caterpillar Mining Arena from a randomly selected starting
position.
D. The mining robot may only excavate BP-1 and gravel located in that teams respective
mining area which will be the opposite end of the Caterpillar Mining Arena teams
starting area.
E. The team must place and remove their mining robot in its designated starting position.
With 10 minutes to place the robot and 5 minutes to remove.
F. The mining robot must end operation when the power-off command is sent.
G. The mining robot cannot anchor itself to the BP-1 surface prior to the beginning of each
competition attempt.
H. The teams will be allowed to repair, or modify the mining robot when the Pits are open.
I. The mining robot must not occupy any space outside of the designated volume defined
by the competition.
J. Interaction with the collector bin must follow the following set of rules:
Navigation systems must be attached during the setup time and removed when
the mining robot is being removed from the arena. If attached to the collector bin
it must not exceed the width of the bin and must not weigh over 9 kg. The
navigation system must go no higher than .25 m above the Collector bin, nor can
it be permanently attached. Also, note that the mass of the navigation system will
be counted towards the 80 kg mass limit of the mining robot and the navigation
system must be self-powered.
A target/beacon may send a signal or light beam, but any use of lasers must be
Visible Class I or Class II. Low power lasers and laser based detection systems
may also be used. If any laser is used supporting documentation from the laser
instrumentation vendor, it must be given to the inspection judge. The judge will
then inspect and verify that laser Class I or Class II have, or have not been
modified.

K. When the mining robot is navigating the arena, three obstacles will be placed on top of
the BP-1 surface. The placement of these obstacles will be randomly selected before the
start of the competition along with two craters of varying depth and width that will also

be in the arena.
L. When the competition starts the mining robot must stay within the Caterpillar Mining
Arena.
M. If the mining robot separates, all parts of the mining robot must be under the control of
the team.
N. Interaction with the wall such as ramming may result in a safety disqualification
determined by the judges. Any collision avoidance sensor must not touch the wall.
O. The mining robot must not use the wall as support. The mining robot must not use the
wall to accumulate BP-1 such as pushing BP-1 against the wall.
P. The mining robot must be able to withstand any airborne dust raised by either team
during the competition attempts.
Q. Once the competition starts no physical access to the mining robot will be allowed. The
mining robot must operate through autonomous and tele-robotic operations only. The
tele-robotic operations must originate from the mining robot, or the NASA video
equipment.
R. The total mining robot mass is limited to a maximum of 80 kg. Equipment not on the
mining robot used to receive data and send commands to the mining robot for telerobotics operations, is excluded from the mass limit.
S. The mining robot must provide its own on-board power. This must be recorded with an
electronic data logger device to be shown to the judges immediately after competition
attempt.

2.1 Preliminary design

We approached the design of the Lunabot by first researching the teams before us. We
noticed a big majority of teams were building a drum type system. Since we lose points for the
amount of energy used, we thought of combing the moving force of the Lunabot into a digging
force to use its energy. This led to the following prototypes.

Design 1
2.1.1 Description of Design 1
The idea behind this design was that part A would be a metal type of storage system with
sharp front, so when part C would pass through the BP-1, the BP-1 would then get funneled

toward Part A which would collect it. Part B is our movement system with threads this would
give the force needed for the funneling process Part C wants to do.

Design 2
2.1.2 Description of Design 2
The idea behind this design would be that of Design 1. Part A would be our metal
storage collector and Part B would be our moving system. Part C in this design is a linkage plate
that connects both storage collectors together for Part D, which would be a linear actuator to lift
and dump the BP-1 out from the storage/collectors. We were exploring the idea of having the
storage/collectors scrape the ground without any funnel system to differentiate Design 2 from
Design 1. The first thoughts of new dump system were now coming into play.

Design 3
2.1.3 Description of Design 3

Design 2 introduced a dumping system, now Design 3 will focus on the placement of the
storage/ collector unit. As shown, Part A is the moving system and Part B is our collector/
storage. This design places the collector/storage unit behind the main Lunabot to be dragged
across the BP-1 surface. A textile/baggage type of material was now thought of to be used for
Part B instead of metal.

Design 4
2.1.4 Description of Design 4
The team unanimously chose to go in the direction of using as much of a passive
storage/collection/digging Lunabot as possible. We wanted to explore the idea of a
textile/baggage material recently mentioned in Design 3. Design 4 Part A, is a scoop/funnel that
as it travels through, the BP-1 would force its way towards the opening on top. The BP-1 would
then fall into our storage unit Part B. The storage unit is made up of a type of textile/baggage
material, so as the BP-1 is collected, it would expand to the size needed. Part C is our moving
system to provide the force to do these operations.
At this stage, the decision was made to focus on the dig/dump system. Research was also
being done into purchasing a threaded platform for our moving system. The team knew that
they wanted to go with the textile/baggage material. However there were pros and cons to this
which is listed below.
Pros

The material would be lighter than metal which would reduce the amount of points deducted
and help to insure that we do not go over the weight limit.
The material has much more freedom when it comes to its shape.
The material can be unfolded if a size requirement is an issue, or if it serves to help any of
the processes on the Lunabot.

Cons
Since the material is not rigid steps would have to be taken so it does not interfere with any
other mechanical linkages its not intended to.
A tear in the material could compromise the storage unit and inhibit if not destroy any
chance that we can store or dump BP-1 into the collector bin.
A system to dump the BP-1 out of the material would be needed that would be reliable. We

would also have to work around the fact that the material is not rigid on its own.
Since we ultimately decided to stick with the passive digging system, we realized the
Lunabot would now require a lot of force behind its storage system. Finally, preliminary design
was made based on the idea of being as passive as possible and continue the use of a
textile/baggage material.
.
2.1.5 Description of Design 5
In design 5 we began to map out the actions and steps needed for our Lunabot.

Required Step 1
Part A is our moving system, which we will go into more detail about after describing
the rest of the Lunabot. Part B is a bag made from a rip stop material. This will become clear in
Step 2, but as you can see, this a bag can fold on itself to help stay within the height
requirements. Part C is a flipping mechanism attached to metal guides on the edges with two
actuators below it. This will become more clear in Step 2 and 3.

Required Step 2
Part A is the folding mechanism unfolded which in conjunction with Part D. Part D is
two linear actuators raised to different heights that will angle Part B, which is the bag into the
BP-1 surface. The Bag will have a blade and opening in the front where the BP-1 will be
collected into by scraping on the surface. Part C are the mechanical guides, as seen the front two
are at a lower height than the back two.

Required Step 3
The BP-1 will be collected into Part D which is the bag/storage system at this point, the
linear actuators in Part A will both raise to the height so that Part D can reach the collector bin
and because of the guides being short in the front they will angle Part B and D to dump out the
BP-1 collected.

Optional Step 1

If the Lunabot cannot reach the height needed to dump then Part A would fold back on
itself to get a greater height.

3 Final design
3.1 Rover System
3.1.1 Mechanical Layout and System
The mechanical layout of the Rover system are divide into two main components. The
threads/motors and the chassis.

The threads of our Rover system is depicted in the above model. Where
Part A are the wheels that turn the threads. Part C is the gear from the motor which
is attached to part A with a chain. Part B are rollers to allow the threads to move
smoothly. The threads were modified to be able to grip the BP-1 surface better,
because of the fact that all of our force to dig will come from the threads. In the
model below you can see the Chassis (Part A) attached to the Dig system (Part B,
C, and D). To the left is a picture of 3-D printed Nylon paddles which will be
attached to the threads to add more grip.

3.1.2 Electronic System Layout for Rover

A motor controller is controlling both the front and back motors. Status lights are
mounted on the outside of the Lunabot and wired in to tell which parts of the Lunabot are
getting Power. An emergency stop button was placed on the outside and wired in which will cut
all power to the bot if hit.

3.2 Dig/Dump System

3.2.1 Mechanical layout and system

Above is the scoop design. The approach to dig the BP-1 is to scrape the surface and
collect what is on the surface. The design calls for two blades as the BP-1 will be scraped into
the container and then stop multiple blades allow us to not only take advantage of the surface
area our bot covers but also to fill the container faster as each blade has to fill a smaller space.
The roof of the scoop is elongated with a lip this is because the dumping procedure called for
the robot to flip the scoop upside down, causing all the BP-1 gathered to roll inside the
container and then gather at the roof which is now the bottom and will be used to dump into the
collector bin as seen in the following picture.

The digging will be done as depicted below. The scoop will lower into the ground after flipping
out due to the Track actuator (Part B). Part A has three actuators which will allow us to push the scoop
into the BP-1 if needed.

Zoom in on Actuator

3.2.2 Electronic System and Layout for Dig/Dump

Above is a color coded wiring diagram of the dumping system. Where two motor controllers are
used to control 3-4 linear actuators. Voltage regulators are used to make sure that each component
receives the correct voltage as the Linear Actuators run on 12v and the Motors on 24v. The Receiver is
wired in for RC override controls. Finally the Arduino Mega 2560 is acting as the brain of the system,
with an Ethernet shield attached to allow us to interface with the Lunabot wirelessly and run scripts as
needed.

4 Cost overview

Budgeted Cost
Item

Amount

Rover System
Drive control system (RPi)
$600
Frame Components- (Angle Iron, Carbon Fiber, Aluminum
sheets, Carbon Fiber Rods, High Density PolyEthylene sheets,
PLA, ABS, fasteners, resins )
Actuators, Pistons, Motors, Servos, Sensors

$3,000
$3,000

Wheels/Treads
$450
Battery Power/Charging
$800
Wiring

$200

Software Support

$400
Dig and Dump System

Actuators, Pistons, Motors

Chain/belt system
Dig/Dump control system (Arduino-Microcontroller Boards, Servo
controllers, relays )
Pre-fabricated buckets
Aluminum sheets, Carbon Fiber Robs, High Density PolyEthylene
sheets
Wiring

$2,000
$550
$500
$200

$1,000
$200
$100

Software Support
Communication System
Rx/Tx gear for drive/dig control system (802.11n)
Walkie-Talkies
Joysticks, Control hardware
Total

$500
$200
$300
$14,000

Actual Cost
Item

Amount

Rover System
Drive Control system - (Motor Contoller\ RoboteQ MDC2460 2x60A 60V with Encoder input, IG32, IG42, and IG52 Gear
Motor Encoder Pull-up Board)
Frame Components - ( HD2 Chassis with hardware, ATR and
Vectoring Robot Hardware Kit, *T-Slotted Aluminum Extrusion)
Acuators, pistons, motors, servos, sensors - ( IG52-04 24VDC
136 RMP Gear Motor with Encoder)
Wheels/Threads - (HD2 Treaded ATR Tank Robot Platform,
HD2 Track Wheels Gen 4, HD2 Roller and Shaft Gen 4, HD2
Pair of Molded Spliceless Tracks Gen 4)
Battery Power/Equipment-(K2 25.6V LiFePO4 Battery Pack
9.6Ahr , Battery Bracket \ Install HD2 Battery Mount, Battery
Charging system \ Dual Battery Charging system )
Wiring- (Electric Motor Hookup Kit, 30 Amp Connector Set,
HD Electric Power Hookup Kit)
Software Support - (Base .NET application for RC Override)

$412.60

$1,650.08
$1,354.20

$5,066.92

$1,655.80
$75.75
$540.00

Dig and Dump System

Actuators, Pistons, Motors - ( PA-14P-12-50 Feedback
Actuator, PA-14P-18-50 Feedback Actuator, Actuator Rubber
Boot for PA-14P Models, Mounting Bracket, PA-18-12-150
Track Actuator, Fuse Holder with 10A Fuse)
Chain/belt system
Dig/Dump Control System - ( RobotQ SDC2160 - 2x20A 60V
Motor Controller with Encoder Input)
Pre-fabricated bucket
Aluminum sheet, Carbon Fiber Rods, High Density - (Screws,
Panel Mount Light, Tread SPDT SP, Aluminum Hinge, Dual Coil
Latch Relay, Low profile RE, Rack System)
Wiring - (Male to Female RP, 45 AMP Anderson Power
Pole/Power Splash, Extream Max 3005.2169 mari)
Software Support

$1,094.33
$0.00
$225.00
$15.00

$617.39
$64.11
$0.00

Communication System
Rx/Tx gear for drive/dig control system (802.11n) (Programmable Wifi Custom Control Interface Package,
Spektrum DSMX DX6i Transmitter with AR6210 Reciever,
ASUS 3-IN-1 Wireless Router)
Walkie-Talkies
Joystick, Control hardware - ( GT Power RC 130A Power
ANT, RF Coaxial Coax adapter RP )
Total

$1,686.18
$0.00
$79.60
$ 14,536.96

* (1X1X48" T-slotted Alum Extrusion, Single Unibearing, L Flng Fastening Bolt

Kit, T-Nut Fastner, Inside Corner Gusset, Fastening Bolt Kit, Single Unibearing,
Drop in T-Nut Fasteners, Stop RD Pushbutton, Threaded Extrusion Fastener,
Angled Joining Plate, 5 Hole TEE Plate, 3" Arm 90 Deg Dynamic Pivot
Assembly, Double Economy T-NUT Fastener, Pressure Term C-H 30 MM
Contact Blocks)

5 Concept of operations

7 Schedule of work
(10/06/14 11/20/14) - Team recruitment phase
(11/6/14) - Team registration is opened on the York RMC website.
(11/14/14 - 11/17/14) RMC paperwork is filled out and sent to the competition.
(12/01/2014 1/31/2015) Design Phase
(12/2/14) The team gathers for the first official meeting. The rules of the competition are gone
over and various ideas on how we should approach the goals of the competition are pitched.
(12/4/14) The team is starting to be broken into the software and hardware divisions and every
member is to return to the next meeting with a sketch of their ideas/designs.
(12/9/14) The sketches are all presented and the team begins to vote in which direction we
want to go. After two paths were decided on the hardware division prepared to 3-D model
various designs around the paths. The software division was given robots to reverse engineer
that simulated the basic motions needed.
(12/11/14) (12/19/14) The 3-D models of Dig/Rover designs were presented and Design 1
was chosen and discussed. Given the feedback from the team the hardware division prepared to
revise the model. The process was repeated until Design 5 was made.
(1/06/2015) - With a clear path and design, parts were now being researched to construct the
design.
(1/12/2015 1/31/2015) - The skeleton components of the Lunabot were decided on and the
Software division mapped out how to achieve the movements needed to the parts purchased.
Meanwhile the hardware division began to make mock ups of the Lunabot.
(2/1/2015 3/31/2015) Implementation Phase
(2/1/2015 3/1/2015) - As parts were coming in for the Lunabot the hardware division began
to modify the mock ups to fit the realistic needs of the Lunabot such as structural support and
clearance of parts. The software division worked on coding the interface to map buttons and
write scripts.
(3/1/2015 3/28/2015) The Lunabot rover system is assembled and the Dig and Dump system
is being mocked up.
(3/28/2015) Community outreach event is hosted at York College SEEMA Program to educate
and expose students from 3rd to 9th grade about STEM fields and the Lunabot competition.
(3/28/2015 4/15/2015) Lunabot is assembled with mock Dig and Dump system.
(4/15/2015) Community outreach event is hosted at York College for the Queens High School
of the sciences robotics club.

(4/15/2015 5/10/2015) Verification and Testing Phase

(4/15/2015 4/23/ 2015) Mock Dig and Dump system is tested.
(4/23/2015 5/1/2015) Dig and Dump system is built and attached to Lunabot
(5/1/2015 5/10/2015) Verification that Lunabot meets competition requirements.