Rover Test Platform

Engineering test platform for developing RC rover control and telemetry. Pairs with the RC Transmitter.

Overview

A small-scale test rover used to develop and validate control, telemetry, and safety features before deploying them on full-size vehicles (e.g. RC snowblower). Receives wireless commands from a custom pistol-grip transmitter and sends back real-time sensor data via nRF24L01+ acknowledge payloads.

Features

• Wireless control via nRF24L01+ with bidirectional telemetry
• Mixed-mode drive — throttle and steering via RoboClaw motor controller
• Telemetry reporting — battery voltage, board temperatures, motor currents sent back to transmitter each cycle
• Connection failsafe — motors stop automatically if radio link is lost for >1 second
• Motor stop (M-Stop) — responds to transmitter's M-Stop flag, controls motor enable/disable via digital pin

Planned

• Joystick-aimed chute control (additional servo/actuator channels)
• Per-vehicle configuration via SD card profiles on transmitter side

Hardware

• Arduino Mega
• nRF24L01+ radio module (SPI, CE=D49, CSN=D53)
• Basicmicro RoboClaw motor controller (Serial1, address 0x80, 38400 baud)
• Motor enable/disable on D7

Project Structure

RoverTest/
├── main/                 # Receiver firmware (Arduino IDE)
│   └── main.ino          # Radio receive, RoboClaw control, telemetry, failsafe
├── test_sketches/        # Standalone test/reference sketches
│   ├── simpleJoystick/   # Raw joystick → serial output
│   ├── roverJoystick/    # Direct joystick → RoboClaw
│   ├── roverJoyRead/     # Joystick + RoboClaw telemetry → LCD
│   ├── roverRX/          # nRF24 receiver + RoboClaw (precursor to main)
│   ├── roverReceiver/    # Joystick → RoboClaw variant
│   ├── roverRead/        # RoboClaw telemetry → serial LCD
│   ├── roverReadVersion/ # RoboClaw firmware version check
│   ├── PacketSerialMixedPWM/ # RoboClaw mixed mode basic test
│   ├── LCD_Test/         # Serial LCD test
│   └── while/            # LCD + LED loop test
├── stl/                  # 3D printed chassis files
├── docs/                 # Documentation and images
├── LICENSE               # GPLv3
└── README.md

Radio Protocol

The rover receives a dataPackage and responds with an ackPackage via nRF24L01+ acknowledge payloads. These structs must match the transmitter exactly.

// Transmitter → Rover
struct dataPackage {
  byte throttle;        // 0-127, 64 = stop (RoboClaw mixed mode)
  byte steering;        // 0-127, 64 = center
  bool data_motor_stop; // true = motors disabled
};

// Rover → Transmitter (acknowledge payload)
struct ackPackage {
  byte highBatt, lowBatt;     // Battery voltage, tenths of a volt
  byte highTemp1, lowTemp1;   // Board temp 1, tenths of a degree C
  byte highTemp2, lowTemp2;   // Board temp 2, tenths of a degree C
  byte highIM1, lowIM1;       // Motor 1 current, hundredths of an amp
  byte highIM2, lowIM2;       // Motor 2 current, hundredths of an amp
  bool ack_motor_stop;        // Current motor stop state
};

Dependencies

Install via Arduino IDE Library Manager:

• RF24 (TMRh20 fork)
• RoboClaw Arduino Library

Development

This project is developed with assistance from Claude (Anthropic), used for code architecture, refactoring, and documentation.

License

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE for details.