West Virginia University Robotics Team

West Virginia University Robotics Team was to design and fabricate a sample collection Rover for the NASA Rasc-Al Robo-ops competition hosted at the NASA Johnson Space Center’s Rock Yard.

Before acquiring the Pepwave MAX HD2 system, they were using a pair of CradlePoint cellular modem/router combos that were bridged over a WiFi network. They positioned one of the CradlePoint routers at a stationary base station and affixed the other to the Rover.

This solution worked well untill the Rover lost line of sight to the base station. The Rover was sluggish due to the decreased bandwidth and increased latency.

They needed a more reliable and rebust solution.