Starting in February of 2008, our team of 9 student developers had only 4 months to design, build, program and test a ground robot for the 2008 Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition. Drawing from experiences gained from competing in the DARPA Urban Challenge, the team built Kratos.

Hardware Design and Construction

Kratos was designed and built entirely from scratch. The short development cycle required us to make careful and well informed design decisions, so as to minimize failures of the robot’s hardware.

To start with, the entire robot was designed using Autodesk Inventor CAD software. By accurately modeling components within the CAD software, we were able to obtain exact placement of all the components and exact dimensions for the chassis before construction began.

The chassis was primarily constructed using the 80/20 extruded aluminum framing system. Each joint was held together using bolts and custom-machined aluminum plates. The initial design and construction of the chassis took about a month between conception to the first full assembly shown in the photo to the left.

For Kratos’ drivetrain, we opted for an arrangement with two CIM motors per side. They are connected to the wheels with a BaneBots 12:1 planetary gearbox reduction and a 10:3 chain drive reduction. The wheels are 12.4″ diameter pneumatic wheels with sawtooth treads. each motor is connected to an Innovation First Victor 884 motor controller.