BYU MARS ROVER TELEMETRY IN THE 2025 UNIVERSITY ROVER CHALLENGE

Abstract

As part of a senior-level capstone design course, our team designed, developed, and built a planetary rover for the University Rover Challenge (URC), capable of autonomous and manual remote operation. This paper presents and discusses the role of telemetry systems in facilitating communication between sensors onboard the rover and the base-station computer. The rover featured several critical subsystems, including a wirelessly-controlled differential drive system, localization, navigation, and perception solutions, a science module, and a 6-DOF robotic arm. These subsystems shared information with the base-station computer over a long-range antenna using ROS 1 and ROS 2. Overall, we focused on implementing robust and reliable communication approaches to ensure low-latency operation, given the URC’s long-range, bandwidth-limited connection requirements.