FOR TEAMS
IRC Judges Advice
This segment has been set up by the IRC judges and staff. The remarks gave here are proposed to be utilized as frameworks for Systems Engineering, and are not expected to supplant, adjust, explain or change the official Rules and Guidelines or Q&A in any capacity. There is no layout for building and working a perfect Rover, however the focuses beneath have been set up with careful thought.
Communication
Appropriate design and testing of communication between the Rover and base station is the key distinction between being a top contender and simply staying there. Nothing is progressively shocking – or normal – in the IRC than for a group to buckle down all year, pass all the reviews, travel from far away, and afterward have their Rover simply sit at the beginning line at the actual IRC competition, unmoving, in view of issues with their communications framework. Unfortunately, this happens very frequently. A Large number of groups experience extreme difficulty with their communications framework. Communications(coms) disappointments are by far the most well-known issue that prevents a group from being a top contender. The Judeges have seen that the top groups consistently have strong, dependable coms, and the groups with poor coms never progress nicely. It doesn’t make a difference how great your Rover configuration is, or how hard you worked throughout the entire year, on the off chance that you don’t have solid coms, you won’t be a top contender. Accordingly, groups are strongly advised to put a great deal with respect to time and effort into guaranteeing that their com links are dependable.
Plan your com framework for both close and far activity.
Recollect that most IRC exercises are very close the control station, however this might be over a wide angle – the Rover won’t generally be ‘in front’ of your antenna. Teams need to ensure that they can support control over a wide angle near to the Antenna. Parts of a portion of the tasks are further. Groups should have the option to cover both close and far operation.
Plan and trial of your coms as a central piece of your rover development.
Don’t skip your com links, or surge it toward the end. You ought to be planning and testing your com interfaces well ahead of time. Test them over realistic distances and geometries, like what you will discover at the IRC. On the off chance that your group is new to the IRC, take a look at past recordings to get a thought of the scale and extent of the terrain. For groups that live in nations that don’t utilize indistinguishable radio frequencies from India, test and train with the proper frequencies in your nation, and be set up for a basic switch upon appearance in India, and afterward test the final design once more. We additionally suggest that groups test their com connects after they show up at the competition region. Test, test, test!
Fix, Realibility, and Logistics
Design the entire system for ease in troubleshooting.
It is a well-known fact in the military that beginners will discuss technique while experts consider logistics, since that is the thing that truly figures out who wins and who falls behind. Correspondingly, in IRC Logistics for moving and operating the Rover at the different task sites and the ease of repair during and between tasks should be considered alongside task capability and speed. Consideration should be given in Rover design, and in preliminary testing and preparing, for the ability to make rapid repairs. Parts and components can break and repairs should be made. Software may need updating. Workarounds may need to be improvised.
It is ideal to ensure you have all the devices, Tools, and basic extra parts you may require. It is smarter to carry a lot than to be short a basic part or device.
Take a balanced approach to capability and reliability
It may be a winning strategy to adopt an ambitious rover design capable of performing all of every task in the competition. However, the more complex a system is the less solid it will be and, odds are, it will take additional to design and assemble, leaving less time for testing and preparing. IRC is a complex competition, Teams can strategize by deciding if they want to pursue a design that is more capable but more complex in order to increase their ability to complete an entire task, or decide to use a simpler but potentially more reliable design that may be more likely to accomplish at least a portion of a task.
Contemplate the plan includes that are really significant.
Many capabilities are very good. In any case, some are a higher priority than others. For instance, none of the tasks at IRC would be especially hard to complete inside the assigned timeframe in the event that they were performed by a human at a walking pace: the Rovers don’t require superhuman abilities. Ponder the particular activities that will be required in each task, transform that into significant execution attributes, turn that into relevant performance characteristics, and then prioritize them over characteristics that are not as vital.
View the rover, communications, control, and operations as a single system
Remember that the competition isn’t just about the Rover. Think carefully through all parts of activity: the meanderer, calculated help, communications, and activity, and how that will be done in a remote, open air area
In what manner will you have situational awareness? The ability to imagine one’s environmental factors with the view from a locally available camera isn’t in the same as the natural eye. The Team ought to consider how to guarantee sufficient attention to recognize targets and obstacles, navigate, judge terrain, and risks.
How will you operate the Rover? Navigation, Route Determination, and danger avoidance simply gets you to where you need to go. In what manner will you watch the action you are performing? Will you have the skill and precision required, just as the quality and the speed? Which characteristics are more important?
Design, Testing, and Training
Structure for the three Rs: Reliability, Ruggedness, and Robustness
Rovers have been crashed unexpectedly into Pits and even flipped over. The best designs are of no use if the Rover breaks down in the field. Contemplate how a Rover configuration will stand up in the field, not simply work in the lab (and that will take you back to planning for repair.) And don’t forget to secure and ship your rover, including internal parts, so that it is not damaged in the shipping process
Keep the design simple
It is a saying of building that the less complex design is, the almost certain to work. On the other hand, the more complex a design the more it needs to be tested for ensuring reliability. Unfortunately, more complex designs also require more time to design and build, leaving less time for testing and practice. This doesn’t mean staying away from novel or inventive plans or ideas, but rather weighing carefully the difficulty of developing complex features before deciding on adopting them.
Build it early, and test, test, test
It is smart to lead testing consistently during each phase of the design and assembly process, particularly if a Rover includes new or unusual ideas. Any design feature that has not been tested in the lab can’t be depended on to work in the field. The accommodation near the competition site the day before the competition isn’t the spot or time to initially test a component. This goes for software too. Test in as realistic an environment as possible. What worked in the lab can and has failed in the IRC field environment.
Also, remember to train, train, train
Similarly as significant as having a well-built Rover is having a very much prepared Team. The Team should appear at the IRC acquainted with operating, maintaining, setting up, and repairing the equipment, and quickly fixing problems as they arise. Remember that the IRC occasions are all time bound, so a well-practiced team will have an advantage over one that is unfamiliar with its equipment. Practice and preparing should, like testing, be done under practical, field-like conditions.