Rover – The Sensor Mast
We will be soldering the Rover’s new printed circuit board (PCB) today with the goal of gaining full locomotion tomorrow. You can see one tire spinning in my earlier post about our first circuit test.
When the Rover starts moving around, he will be blind as a bat and pretty likely to crash into things without a little coaching from his engineering buddies. In order to behave intelligently, he needs sensor input and we are going to take a page from the guys at NASA in this regard. The MER rovers Spirit (MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B) both have sensor masts extending up from the chassis allowing the sensor suite to swivel and look around much like a human head.
NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
The Lynxmotion chassis includes a mounting hole for a DC servo motor in the lexan top of the chassis. Digging through our shop we found a DC servo that was considered but later rejected from the Rabbit Embedded Camera Application Kit. When we compared the servo to the mounting hole, it fit perfectly which was a pleasant coincidence and saved us some drilling, filing, and finishing work on the chassis.
Feature Addition – Sensor Mast
Futaba S3004 DC Servo
Here’s an updated concept sketch for the Rover.
Rover with Rotating Sensor Mast
And here is a collection of pictures of the motor being mounted.
The DC Servo
It fits!
The servo extends deep back into the chassis
Lookout MER, we are ready for a sensor mast!
