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UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab

Switchblade is the nimble treaded rover of the UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab.  Switchblade can pop wheelies and overcome obstacles (lke stairs) nearly as high as it is long.  The key to its agility is the fact that it can “throw its weight around”, so to speak, by actuating a heavy boom (containing the vehicle’s batteries) in order to reposition favorably its center of mass, which it can do quite quickly.  Our current prototype was built in partnership with National Instruments, and is built around the NI sbRIO 9602, with the control design performed in Labview.

[Source] UCSD Coordinated Robotics Lab