5.3 System Requirements
The following is a list of minimal requirements and design constraints for an uncrewed system to be permitted access to a course or practice area. Teams that arrive at the competition failing to meet the vehicle requirements will not be permitted on any course or practice area until the vehicle is modified to meet all requirements.
General System Requirements
RoboNation may disqualify any vehicle that they deem to pose an unreasonable safety hazard to teams, volunteers, staff, competition venue, or surrounding environment.
Any uncrewed system that does not meet the required specifications may be disqualified from use until the requirements are met.
If uncrewed systems become entangled with course elements, RoboNation will pause operations until the systems can be disentangled and the course restored to normal operations. RoboNation will take this time out of the team's remaining allotment of the impacted timeslot.
All deployed systems must be capable of operating as fully autonomous systems.
Each vehicle must operate solely on its ability to sense and maneuver in the operating area using on-board resources or in collaboration with other systems operating autonomously in the competition area.
While in autonomous mode, vehicles, may ONLY share sensor or control information with other systems operating in autonomous mode.
The remote controllers and Operator Control Stations (OCS) may NOT be used when in autonomous mode.
All systems must be positively buoyant.
No materials may be released by any vehicle into the waters of the operating area.
All systems must meet the domain-specific requirements as described in the following sections.
General Safety Requirements
All vehicles must have the ability to be killed such that they are safe to approach and handle without danger of thrusters or propellers being activated.
Systems must have both a clearly marked on-board kill button as specified in the domain-specific sections, as well as the ability to be killed remotely by team operators.
Specific requirements for USV, UUV, and UAV systems are described in the sections below.
All sharp, pointy, moving, or sensitive parts must be covered and clearly marked.
Overall Power Requirements
All vehicles may only use battery-powered electrical systems.
All batteries must be sealed to reduce the hazard from acid or caustic electrolytes
The open circuit voltage of any battery (or battery system) may not exceed 60Vdc.
No combustion engines of any type may be used on the uncrewed systems.
Manual Control Requirements
Each vehicle must have the ability to be remotely piloted (tele-operated) by a human operator; this may be required to bring the system back to the dock or other launch area.
If the uncrewed system loses connection to the remote controller (such as remote being turned off, losing power, or out of range), the vehicle must default to a safe state as described in the domain-specific sections below. The exception is for UUVs operating properly underwater.
The manual remote controller must be a dedicated unit, not used for any other purpose; use of a laptop as the manual control station is not permitted.
If the remote controller is turned off (or power is interrupted), vehicle must default to a state in which all propulsion systems and actuators are automatically commanded to 0% thrust or an off state.
Multi-Vehicle Operations
Each team may operate one (1) system within a single domain at a given time during the competition.
If a UUV is tethered to a USV, this is counted as one vehicle in each domain towards the team operating limits.
Each system to be used must meet the requirements for its operating domain. Each system is subject to inspection and safety checks by RoboNation.
Each system will be measured and weighed independently.
Each uncrewed system will have designated launch and recovery locations marked on site during the competition.
Systems are not required to start joined together, nor are they required to rejoin at the end of an autonomous run.
Teams may elect to kill one or more systems during a run, but once a system leaves autonomous mode, it may not return or continue earning points during that attempt.
If one (or more) systems are still operating autonomously on the course, the run may continue until the last system is no longer operating autonomously.
Teams wishing to have communication between each vehicle must post their method and frequencies on the RobotX Technical Forum channel.
Acoustic transmitters that operate in the frequency range used by the RoboNation pingers are always off limits for acoustic communication.
Inter-vehicle communication and cueing of one system by another is an advanced behavior that merits special points. If such behavior is executed, teams are required to notify judges in advance and present post-run supporting documentation (e.g., vehicle logs) to the judges.
Vehicle Transport Requirements
Teams must be prepared to move their systems around the competition site. To transport from Team Village to the launch areas require transport across multiple surfaces.
Event organizers will provide a pool of carts that may be shared amongst teams for transportation of their systems during the competition. These carts will be commercial off-the-shelf carts to which students may attach cradles suited to the specific considerations of their systems while in use. Since these will be shared resources, any attachments must be easy to attach and remove.
Teams may provide their own carts as long as they meet the following requirements.
Carts must be manually propelled on site, no motorized carts.
Cart handles must be solid, no rope or chain.
Cart must not exceed 1.1 meter in width.
Carts must have rubberized wheels that are at least 7cm in diameter.
Carts must be able to get wet with minimal impact to function.
Carts must be negatively buoyant in the water.
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