The task unit 2

The second part of the task is to work as a project team to research and share ideas, before designing your vehicle and thinking about its uses.

Investigating engineering design

• 2.1

  As a team, find out all you can about automated guided vehicles or intelligent ground vehicles. Use the schools in your area to form a discussion group, explore websites and approach businesses as part of your research. Be sure to record your discussions and outcomes.

• 2.2

  As you work towards your design brief, consider the importance of autonomous vehicles. These have been used in environments and roles considered too dangerous for humans for some time, and they're in increasing demand.

  There are complex technical challenges facing unmanned ground vehicles (UGV) compared to their aerial equivalents.

• 2.2a

  Identify these challenges and compare how these are solved by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

  Remember, UGV are ideally suited to high risk, high endurance environments. They're smaller than manual vehicles for the same reasons that UAVs are smaller than manned aircraft.

• 2.2b

  In a tracked vehicle manufactured by BAE Systems, identify the ‘package space’ allocated for any driver to provide levels of support, safety and comfort.

• 2.3

  Now you're ready for the design brief. Watch the video of the Fire Chief outlining his requirements, and refer to the detailed brief in the downloadable PDF for the following task.

• 2.4

  Explore the design opportunities open to you, whilst thinking about what your solution needs to do.

• 2.5

  As a team, prepare the product design specification. You might like to think about identifying a generic platform and breaking the design into three modules:

  1. The module that has mission planning, obstacle avoidance and route finding capabilities
  2. The module that has direct control of the ‘vehicle’ controls, such as steering and driving
  3. The module that has the calibration, measuring and communication facilities

Resources to help your research

• Design Brief PDF