Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

The field of unmanned robotic systems is rapidly growing and a multitude of applications are being enabledx000D
and/or are benefiting from such systems. For example, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), unmanned groundx000D
vehicles (UGVs), and marine and hybrid autonomous robots are being used in civilian, surveillance, logistics,x000D
environmental monitoring, patrolling, and rescue missions. Many of such missions require a long operationx000D
time and therefore it is mission critical that the robot, UAV, and UGV has enough power to reliably operatex000D
during the mission. Many such robotic systems include various sensors to sense their surrounding. Therefore,x000D
reliable data communication between the robot and the control centre, particularly in environmentalx000D
monitoring, surveillance and rescue missions is of paramount importance. In this context, RIC Electronics, Ltd.x000D
(RIC), is interested in developing a mobile robot which carries multiple sensors and will be used to gatherx000D
sensory data in hazardous environments such as pipelines, high-voltage plants, and toxic environments. Thisx000D
device requires power as well as sensory data to be transferred reliably and simultaneously to and from thex000D
robot to the control centre over a distance of up to 100 meters. Given the relatively long duration of operation,x000D
using batteries is not a viable option as the required battery would be excessively large and heavy for the robotx000D
to carry, in particular, when the robot is a UAV. Also, given the metallic enclosures and obstacles in suchx000D
environment wireless data communication to and from the robot is not a reliable option. Therefore, the goal ofx000D
this project is to use a coaxial cable to simultaneously transfer power and data to and from the robot in ax000D
reliable manner.x000D
In this project, we plan to design a robust on-board sensor management system to read sensors and transfer thex000D
measurements over a long coaxial cable (up to 100 meters and beyond). In the coaxial cable, the datax000D
transmission line is coupled to the power line. This can potentially affect the reliability of the transmitted data.