The Project

The S.A.R.T. is designed as a disposable, rapidly manufactured and cheap remote inspection vehicle that can be deployed in any situation where it is difficult or dangerous to send in human personnel. From search and rescue to disaster response to inspection of tunnels and pipelines, S.A.R.T. robots are equipped with arrays of sensors and cameras to report the situation to personnel on the scene.

Open Source

The S.A.R.T. project is completely open source. All our code and design files, as well as tutorials and useful information is available on our website, GitHub and Thingiverse. By keeping the project open, we hope to faciliate the development of rapidly manufactured first response robots worldwide, contributing to the global goal of saving lives.

S.I.G.H.T.S Interface

The S.A.R.T robot is controlled via a dashboard called the S.I.G.H.T.S Interface, our custom built software to run everything on the robot and provide an easy user interface for the client. Features include multiple video streams, providing a 360° view, live sensor data including thermal imagery, direct access to the robot through SSH console, and much more. Users never have to access the S.A.R.T hardware directly – everything can be done within the interface. See the demo here!

Complete Documentation

We provide extensive documentation on all our design and construction processes when it comes to coding, modelling, building, and coming up with new ideas. You could build your own S.A.R.T simply using the information provided in our daily blog.

Also available is the comprehensive SART TDM 2022

The Future

We have many plans to expand the versatility of the S.A.R.T robot. We are creating a “base model” that other people can develop on top of thanks to our Open Source philosophy.

Supporting New Teams

We currently have a platform that beginning teams can use to start their own journey in rescue robotics. Check out our S.A.R.T Jr. Robot resources to learn more!

Awards & Recognition

We often enter our robots in competitions such as RoboCup. We have received awards and recognition for a number of achievements and advances.

Tied 1st Place – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2016, Leipzig, Germany

1st Place – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2017, Nagoya, Japan

Open Source Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2017, Nagoya, Japan

Open Source and Innovation Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2018, Montréal, Canada

Open Source and Innovation Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2021, Worldwide (Virtual)

Best in Class Mobility/Maneuvering – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2021, Worldwide (Virtual)

Best in Class Exploration/Mobile Sensing – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2021, Worldwide (Virtual)

Best Video Presentation – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2021, Worldwide (Virtual)

Best in Class 60cm Scale – Major Rescue League, RoboCup 2021, Worldwide (Virtual)

Open Source and Innovation Award – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2022, Bangkok, Thailand

Best in Class Dexterity & Sensing – Rapidly Manufactured Rescue League, RoboCup 2022, Bangkok, Thailand

Partners

Diamond Sponsor

Silver Sponsors

Partners

Specifications

S.A.R.T Mark IV

Drive System2x Dynamixel AX-18A Servo
Computational UnitNVIDIA Jetson Nano
Central ProcessorQuad-core ARM A57 @ 1.43 GHz
Onboard StoragemicroSD
RAM4 GB 64-bit LPDDR4
Camera System3x ELP 5MP HD USB Camera
1x Pimoroni MLX90640 Thermal Camera
Mapping SystemLDS-01 LIDAR Laser Distance Sensor
Additional SensorsAir Quality (VOC and eCO2), Temperature
Human CommunicationTwo-way Stereo Audio
Manipulator60 cm Arm & Claw, 4 Degrees of Freedom
Control SystemS.A.R.T. Interface (Keyboard, Controller)

S.A.R.T Mark III

Drive System4x Dynamixel AX-18A Servos
Computational UnitUDOO x86 Ultra
Central ProcessorIntel Pentium N3710 @ 2.56GHz x4
Onboard Storage32GB Integrated eMMC
RAM8GB
Camera System4x ELP 5MP USB Camera, 1x Thermal Camera
Mapping System4x Adafruit VL53L0X Time-Of-Flight Sensor
Additional SensorsAir Quality (VOC and eCO2), Temperature
Human CommunicationTwo-way Audio
Control SystemS.A.R.T. Interface

S.A.R.T Mark II

Drive System4x Dynamixel AX-18A Servos
Computational UnitIntel NUC NUC5CPYH
Central ProcessorIntel Celeron N3050 @ 2.16GHz x2
Onboard Storage120GB SAMSUNG SSD
RAM4GB
Camera SystemoCam 5MP USB 3.0 Camera
Mapping System4x SHARP GP2Y0A21YK0F Infared Sensor
Additional SensorsTemperature, Accelerometer, Compass
Human CommunicationText to Speech, Speech to Text
Control SystemS.A.R.T. Interface

S.A.R.T Mark I

Drive System4x Dynamixel AX-12A Servos
Computational UnitRaspberry Pi 3
Onboard Storage32GB SD
RAM1GB
Camera SystemRaspberry Pi Camera Board
Control SystemPlayStation Controller

Our Team

S.A.R.T. Alumni

S.A.R.T. Development Blog

Time For a Makeover

Welcome back to another episode of SART SFX where we are retiring Lord Nibbler! He is very old now and it’s time for a predecessor, so we’re going to revamp our old ideas and create a new (currently unnamed) robot...

We’re back baby!! | a new era of SART

Song of the day: The boys are back in town – Thin Lizzy Welcome back to the official SART blog!! We just came back from our competition in Bordeaux (like 5 months ago), and it’s been a while since our...

Lord Nibbler – Our Bordeaux Robot

Lord Nibbler is a black and white robot named after a beloved character from the animated series Futurama. This unique choice of name stems from the creator’s inspiration derived from two previous robots: Blender and Flexo who are also characters...

Up and running at last!

Song of the day: Shake it off – Taylor Swift The robot ‘Nibbler’ is coming along well. 😊 This weekend has been very productive. We have done: Swapped the wheel nuts around Put the tracks on Wiring Added a fan 3D...

WE’RE COOKING WITH GAS

Song recommendation for the day – It’s A Hard Knock Life by Charles Strouse. Today, we were successful in our attempt to get all our electronic equipment working. Once Hamish and Caitlin were able to set up the power distribution,...

WE’RE BACK!!! 😱😱😱

Song recommendation of the day: Hot N Cold – Katy Perry S.A.R.T. is back up and running, filled with fresh new faces, and plenty of determination we’re excited to get started on our preparations for RoboCup 2023 in Bordeaux, France....

Flexo’s (A)live 🔥🥶💯👌

song recommendation of the day: Take on Me – a-ha Today was our final day of adventure in Thailand. We livestreamed our performance today and here are our results compared to yesterdays recorded runs. (Recorded | Live) center: 76 |60...

Flexo’s getting heated 🥵 -winter temps rising in Canberra 🙄🥱

Song recc: Steal my girl – One Direction Second blog of the day – on that grind Its getting hot in here!!! Flexo got a little hot under its hood! with CPU temps getting towards the 89 degree mark we...

FLEXO destroys practice day

PREP & PRACTICE DAY! song recommendation of the day: Last Resort – Papa Roach Per yesterdays results, Flexo had DESTROYED the tracks, DEMOLISHED the time, and had a dashing time with benders girlfriend 😃 The S.A.R.T teams YouTube page provides...

Our first day in Thailand ! (not really 😢) – Bender’s arch nemesis cancels Thailand trip 😫

Hi everyone!!!!! song recommendation of the day: Nutcracker – Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Today is set-up day! We are in Thailand as we speak 😃 (just kidding) Bender’s arch nemesis FLEXO has made its debut in the SART location (in Australia😥)....

UBECcer Watch Out

Over the past few days we’ve made some exciting locomotion advancements. Connor created Sights motor wrapper plugins for RoboClaw and Roboteq motor controllers, Alex authored a new servo controller for the arm, and Jack jerry-rigged a system to run multiple...

Target Translation

On Tuesday evening we had our first test of the new S.A.R.T. Series M robot with all systems functioning at the same time. During our tests we noticed some of the arm positions caused unnecessary strain on the servos, so...

Using Hardware Acceleration in VNC

‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ I’d like to slightly modify that statement to ‘Any solution to a technology problem that works for an inexplicable reason is indistinguishable from magic’. Here’s why: The S.A.R.T. recently acquired a pair...

Extracting a floor plan from a ZED Mini model using Blender

One of the requirements for the Major competition is to generate a top-down floor plan of the room in which the test takes place. Ideally, this would happen automatically, however until we get that working we can use the exported...

Unbending Bender

Today I worked mostly on testing and familiarizing myself with our development robot, which we as a team named ‘Bender’. To begin the day, I began driving Bender through our various practice courses whilst only navigating using the cameras. I...

Moving 4ward

Big success today as part of our community outreach program “S.A.R.T. Junior”, we got 4 motors working at once with a H bridge and a Raspberry Pi. This simplified system was created to assist with new teams entering the rapidly...

Nvidia Jetson Nano with Intel Wireless AC PCIe WiFi

Here’s how we got our Jetson Nano working reliably with an Intel Wireless AC 3165 PCIe WiFi card. This post outlines the steps someone else used to solve this issue on the Nvidia developer forums, but the solution was spread...

UNLIMITED POWER!

For years, power has always been something we have constantly been seeking to improve. Most robots and other remote/portable applications utilise LiPo batteries. While flexible and providing lots of power in a small package, LiPo batteries do have a lot...