Senior Design Week 10: Group work

This week for testing, the Astraeus team focused on validating full-system performance under controlled conditions. Because the team could not test at Exolith the entire autonomous system was tested on campus. The goal was to ensure that all critical subsystems—navigation, cleaning, alignment, and data logging—worked reliably and in sequence with minimal human input. The rover successfully completed multiple test runs, autonomously traveling to the solar panel using April Tag 1, locking onto April Tag 2 for precise alignment, and activating the cleaning sequence. After completing the cleaning cycle, Astraeus reversed, turned around, and returned to its original position using April Tag 3. Each step of the operation was automatically logged to the onboard database, including timestamps for alignment, cleaning cycle, and panel identification. This allowed the team to then focus on testing if the brush can clean MGS-1 Martian Regolith Simulant off the solar panel.

Figure 1. Astraeus Full System Demonstration.