Project information
- Title: NASA MINDS: The Use of Swarms for Space Resource Recollection, Scientific Data Release, and Statistics
- Category: Undergraduate Research
- Sub-Category: Education
- Project date: March, 2021
- Dashboard URL
- Dashboard Credentials:
- Username: visitor, Password: minds!
Abstract
NASA MINDS is a project where students are challenged to design and build technologies that will support the Artemis mission. In this instance, students were allowed to select their area of research while it is related to the objectives of Artemis. Such research supports the Artemis mission by focusing on methods and algorithms for space recollection of resources and releasing scientific data to the community. This includes ways of recovering vast territories with three to six robots, which consists of avoiding obstacles and recollecting resources with an electrical gripper. We worked with the Robot Operative System (ROS), which uses C++ as the programming language, and Gazebo, a virtual simulation environment. Our team at UPR-Arecibo focused its efforts on Pick-up and Drop-off sequence algorithms. We choose two different base codes, UNM's Swarmathon code, and our previously developed UPRA code, from which we developed improved algorithms with a faster pick-up and a smarter drop-off.