With two past members of Carleton's rover development team now working for the European Space Agency, the team lead says the vehicle is preparing the students to work in the space industry.
The "micro" rover, dubbed Kapvik, is being developed with two space companies, including MPB Communications as well as MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates. MDA, which has an office in Ottawa, will provide a tethering system to help winch the rover up steep hills.
Students took the six-wheeled buggy on a test run at Petrie Island on Friday, working to get the vehicle over rocks and up a five-foot slope. The prototype is intended to be a testbed for future moon and Mars rovers.
The silver vehicle's chassis and moving parts, including the wheels, were built by students and designed in-house. The rover was attached to a laptop for Friday's test; the next step will be adding software so the rover can navigate obstacles itself.
"These are techniques that can be useful for any rover," said Alex Ellery, the professor overseeing the eight to 10 engineering students working on the project. He is the former head of the robotics research group at the Surrey Space Centre in the United Kingdom.
Kapvik is about the size of a large suitcase and as per Canadian Space Agency requirements, must weigh less than 30 kilograms when the entire system is put together.
Money came from stimulus funding provided to the CSA in 2009. Universities could only bid for the rover as subcontractors, so Montreal-based MPB Communications submitted the bid after it was posted on MERX, an online procurement site.
Other partners include Ryerson University and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies.
