Rover is a home-brewed robot with a base with two motorized wheels which are controlled based on differential velocity, and a sonar system mounted on top of the base.

The base has a dedicated microcontroller to allow it to accept various motion commands through a serial port. Encoders are mounted on the motors to provide motion feedback.

The sonar system consists of sixteen Polaroid sonar transducers mounted uniformly in a ring, and a microcontroller together with two Polaroid sonar drivers to accept various sensing commands and to control the operation of the sensing system. The sonar ring has an adjustable height between 30 inches to 38 inches and can be programmed to sense according to various schemes.

Rover had been dressed up as a space-age android, and exhibited and functioned as a human transporter in the Austin's Robot Group Robofest (1993 and 1994). It served hundreds of human drivers with a Nintendo joystick controller as the interface for motion command.

Both pictures above are taken during Robofest IV 1993. That's me standing by Rover, the android robot in the picture on the left. In the second picture, the rider is one of several hundred people who have "driven" around with Rover. Notice the Nintendo controller? Want a better view, click on the pictures above!