Further articles
TURBO – Build to Spin: The Design of a Motor Driver Board
On previous rover designs, we relied on third-party motor driver boards to control components such as the motors in the deep sampling unit. In this iteration of the Rover, we aimed for a more self-sufficient and scalable solution by developing our own motor driver board, capable of handling both BLDC…
WECANT – Sensor Network
To make sure the rover is moving into a direction less dependent on third-party boards, we are developing a new sensor network called WECANT. The name is an abbreviation of the technologies used: Wired Ethernet CAN Adaptive Network Topology. Its purpose is to connect different sensors and actuators into the…
I’ve got the POWER!
Based on the experience gained on the ERC23, the FHNW Rover Team has planned various revisions. The most significant change is to double the system supply voltage from the unregulated battery voltage around 24V to 48V. This allows us to have a more powerful drivetrain. To achieve a longer operating…
Chassis V3.0
Looking ahead to the ERC24, the FHNW Rover Team has planned many innovations and revisions, which also place new demands on the rover’s chassis. Some of these requirements include more space inside the chassis, a new mounting point for the upcoming drivetrain and the integration of a system that allows…
We did it! ERC 2023 is over.
After a stressed and long weekend in Kielce the ERC 2023 ended. During the Final Ceremony the winner of the ERC and the Best Team Award of every Task got announced. As the Final Ceremony started, the tension rose. Did we put enough effort into the project? Or could we…
Finally, the World Finals have started
After our long study break, where we had enough time to finalize our Rover, we arrived in Kielce, Poland, for the World Finals of the European Rover Challenge 2023. After a long drive, we unloaded the vehicles and tested our Rover on the Mars Yard. During the ERC, we have…
How have the software engineers settled into the project?
Our Computer Science studentsSince the start of the spring semester of 2023, the rover team got six new team members. They are not electrical or mechanical engineering students but computer science students. Unlike the existing team members, they are also part-time students. So they work at least 50% of their…
ERC feeling in Switzerland
Our Rover Thommen during the Hero ChallengeAfter 2 Months of intensive planning, our FHNW Rover-Träff finally took place at our Campus in Windisch. The purpose of the competition was to test the weak spots of our Rover Thommen in a competition-like environment. FroST and ERIG, the Rover Teams from the…
Update – Halftime has been reached!
The first semester of our project has successfully come to an end! We were able to finish (almost) all concepts and that means our rover is complete – at least in theory…We ended the semester with a presentation where we covered all the achievements we were able to celebrate during…