MAR: The Minimal Autonomous Rover Project

This project is to develop a computer vision board that detects the gates formed by pairs of ArUco markers, and output the coordinate of the gate to the rover’s microcontroller. The system is designed to use minimal resources (e.g. run on a Raspberry Pi Zero board) and work very reliable under many circumstances (e.g. strong sunlight, high contrast, rain).

Simply order a Raspberry Pi Zero, a Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller, an OV5647 camera that can connect to the Pi Zero, an SD card. Download our image and flash to the SD card using your favourite tool e.g. Etcher and connect the parts to your rover’s motor controller. Print some ArUco markers and make your own autonomous rover!

This project is built and distributed in the hope that it will be useful for lecturers and students in electronics, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

If you want to know how to configure and use the software and hardware, please refer to the User Guide. If you want to modify and build the software or if you want to contribute, please refer to the Development Manual.