Director: Christoph Schwingshackl
With growing interest in Mars exploration, this project builds on the work of previous years' DMT projects. The 2025 rover featured a defined frame, a suspension system enabling motion, a sample collection system, solar panels, and a battery system. The focus was on developing a telescopic sensor platform that attaches to the existing rover, housing a camera and other sensors to enhance the rover’s ability to navigate and orient itself on Mars.
Subgroups
Active Swivel Mount
Supervisor: Idris Kevin Mohammed
Team: Sebastian Clarke, Hazel Elsby, Pak Lin, Orla Johnson
The active swivel mount provides two degrees of motion to the camera: 360 degree rotation around its vertical axis and ±30 degrees of tilt. This allows the camera to look around its environment, and through the use of gimbal motors, the system can mitigate the impact of low-frequency vibrations on the camera feed. The mount attaches to the telescopic arm and houses the camera support system.
Telescopic Arm
Supervisor: Richard Silversides
Team: Tanaf Chowdhury, Erica Gong, Lydia Larsen, Eren Seckin
The telescopic arm system has two key functions: connecting the camera and swivel mount to the rover and providing a stable, elevated platform for capturing the Martian landscape over the existing solar panels and sample collection arm. This design features a two-stage telescopic system with three aluminium tubes.
Vibration-Free Camera Head
Supervisor: David Nowell
Team: Nav Randhawa, Mac Crawford, Jun Yean Yap, Adityia Jain, Sixian Zheng
This sub-project aimed to design a ‘vibration-free’ camera head, which houses both the camera and sensors, with the primary goal of developing an anti-vibration system capable of mitigating vibrations from both the Martian terrain and the rover itself. Our solution is a Quasi-Zero Stiffness (QZS) Gough-Stewart platform, based on a metamaterial concept, designed to counteract vibrations across six degrees of freedom.