One year ago we got request for sponsoring 5 pcs A20-OLinuXino-MICRO for Octanis project from group of students at EPFL, who are making an open source rover (http://octanis.org/rover) that will go to Antarctica.
Their goal was to use A20-OlinuXino-MICRO as a communications base station with LoRaWAN and to use it for onboard image processing of their stereoscopic camera images.
Needless to say the magic words “open source rover project” closed the deal 🙂 We shipped the boards in December 2015 and yesterday got e-mail that the rover operates since February 2016, but he was moved to Antarctica in November and will stay there till February 2017.
You can track the rover position right now at http://octanis.org/constellation/
On GitHub you can see their 3D parts CAD files and all firmware running on the rover. You can reproduce this project with 3D printer.
olimex 
Dec 02, 2016 @ 23:37:39
Awesome! If this normal A20-MICRO works in Antarctica I can’t imagine what your industrial board versions are capable of 🙂
Dec 11, 2016 @ 23:37:49
I was going to translate the French text by the aid of Google Translate, but it got it almost all right alone. I copy-paste the translation here :
“But concretely, what do we do?
With the logistical assistance of the IPEV, we leave for one month, in a zone almost unknown. We drive tractors, which pull caravans (mounted on skis), in which we can eat, sleep, work, … One of the caravans is a chemistry laboratory. We carry all the food we need for 1 month, and the fuel needed to make the machines move forward, and to warm us. During our crossing, we will stop regularly (at the points noted on the map) to make carrots of ice, measurements with the radar, study the physics of the snow, …”
Hope the system will not “freeze”. :p
Nah, seriously, I wish them success in their mission(s).
Thanks Olimex for supporting science.
Dec 12, 2016 @ 09:50:04
Big congratulations, Olimex! This kind of application is a huge feather in your cap, given the importance of scientific monitoring of the polar regions, and no doubt it’s a source of well-deserved pride for you as well.
And I loved your remark that “Needless to say the magic words ‘open source rover project’ closed the deal :)” :-))
Well done for sponsoring the project and science, and of course awesome work by the EPFL students! 🙂
Mar 02, 2020 @ 12:33:48
the web address now is
http://1519.octanis.org/rover/