500kg Unmanned Ground Vehicle

Project Overview

As a lead engineer for Team Kaplan (ID: 647407) in the TEKNOFEST Unmanned Ground Vehicle Competition, I spearheaded the design, simulation, and implementation of the vehicle's core autonomous and powertrain systems. The 'Kaplan' is a 500 kg heavy-duty tracked UGV built on a robust 6061-T6 aluminum alloy chassis and protected by 316-quality stainless steel armor. The platform was engineered to autonomously navigate extreme conditions, including 45% steep slopes , 20% side slopes , 20 cm vertical obstacles , and water crossings. My responsibilities involved designing the vehicle's 4×0.75 kW electric powertrain , where I led the end-to-end electromagnetic design of a custom 48V, 8-pole Permanent Magnet BLDC motor. I utilized Ansys Motor-CAD for analytical sizing and the Ansys Maxwell Suite to conduct detailed electromagnetic simulations, validating the design's magnetic flux density and performance. I also developed the complete autonomous driving and control stack, architecting a system that used a Raspberry Pi 5 for high-level image processing and sign recognition , complemented by an APM 2.8 controller for real-time navigation and stabilization using its integrated IMU. All autonomous logic was rigorously tested and tuned within a high-fidelity Webots simulation environment. Finally, I developed the operator's Ground Control Station (GCS) in JavaFX and engineered its redundant, dual-channel communication architecture. This system used a TP-Link Wi-Fi module for high-bandwidth video and a SIM808 GSM/GPRS module for long-range command, control, and GPS telemetry , featuring an automatic failover from Wi-Fi to GSM to guarantee uninterrupted connectivity.