The desert trek will demonstrate an innovative communication system
for high bandwidth communication over long range from  mobile robots. 
We expect to achieve data rates upto 2 Mbps over the range of 5-8
miles while the rover is traversing natural terrain. This data rate is
typical for stationary applications but is an order of magnitude
higher for mobile applications. 

Mobile robots typically uses omnidirectional antennas for
communication. To achieve high data rates over the longer range, we
will use high gain directional antennas. We will design and build
antenna pointing device to keep  the high gain transmitter antenna on
the rover pointed towards a stationary receiver antenna located 5-10
miles away at the control station. This is a challenging problem. In
the case of moderate speeds across rough terrain, pointing demands 
high slew rates and large motion ranges due to vehicle motion
disturbances. This differs from satellite antenna tracking or
telescope pointing where the need is for very high precision but
incurred motion rates are small. Moreover, mobile robots are commonly
mass and power limited. Attaining tracking stability requirements
coupled with large articulation ranges, high slew rates, low mass and
power makes the problem of payload tracking from mobile robots
challenging.  The antenna pointing device will use 
an IMU, a DGPS, a compass and encoders to generate the necessary
position estimates amd errors signals for pointing. We are looking
into various methods to close the feedback loop. This methods include
visual servoing, signal strength measurements and radio beacons.