RoboBoat for running lanes/ toting towfish?

[ropesfish]

The technology for running a waterborne vessel with GPS guidance and robotic control is fairly common. It seems to be a great idea for a survey tool - running magnetometer sweeps, sidescan surveys and the like. It seems like a useful tool, especially with the mapping software available today. I've seen military versions and some university-funded projects, but the hardware/software for this sort of autonomous vessel is pretty inexpensive.
I realize that there are a lot of well prepared TH'ers out there, but has anyone tried it?
Any pitfalls awaiting the unprepared?

There is also inexpensive hardware available for autonomous aerial drones for overhead video/still photographs. I've seen some really interesting pictures from AUV's as well as from tethered balloons with radio linked cameras. My son was telling me that when he was in Afghanistan those blimps provided a lot of valuable info to his security force teams. Sometimes a different viewpoint can deliver valuable information.

I'd be interested in working on a project or two like that...

 

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[ScubaFinder]

That has always been in my head also. I was an avid Radio controlled airplane nerd when I was a kid, and when electric airplanes, cars, and boats came around I got back into it. In the Dominican Republic I had an aerial camera plane that we flew over the reefs looking for anything unusual. I also found an old home site with a nice cellar pit and trash / bottle pile via a similar setup. I have looked heavily into the autopilot and GPS modules available for aircraft. There is a very expensive UAV Magnetometer out there already.

You are right though, with new battery and motor technology, coupled with navigation and course plotting, you could build a very effective survey tool rather cheaply. I started the process a while back, but scrapped it when I moved. I used a car-top carrier shell turned upside down as the hull...it was amazing how well the thing lends itself to becoming an RC boat. LOL I doubt I could have designed a better hull in that size, and it would easily hold and float all of my gear, it was even fairly splash proof right out of the box. I had a Humminbird side imaging sonar mounted inside, and was planning to add a Quantro Sensing Proton magnetometer to it, and autonomous navigation of course. Never really got that far along, but it was a worthy endeavor, and someone should finish one. If I was going to start again now, I would want to make it an underwater vehicle. My original plan was just a boat. Have you looked into the units that can get a GPS reading on the surface, and then navigate underwater using sonar and visual information? I wonder if that has come into the private sector yet?

I'm with you, lets build one...or even just design one here in theory. I'd love to think about it in depth again, see what is new out there, and get a good cost analysis and run-time estimates.

 

[ropesfish]

I'm ready...There is an Arduino board called ArduPilot @https://github.com/arktools/ardupilotone/wiki/_pages that I plan on using. I have a few Arduino boards around. This experiment will scale up very easily, I believe. I can see a 4-8 foot pontoon sort of boat with a pair of small trolling motor type propulsion pods It wouldnt be that hard to add station keeping capabilities...The hull(s) could be maybe something partially submerged or wave piercing??
There is also a chapter in the book, Arduino Robotics, that has some pretty good ideas.
The AUVSI has all the reading you can stand @ RoboBoat - Foundation. They also have a RoboSub competition. Subs are like ROV's in that sealing against high pressure water intrusion is expensive. VERY expensive and I've been on a 55 yr old schoolboy budget.
The hard part for the roboboat is done...if there is a real use for this kind of equipment...I think I'll dig my stuff out of the closet.
I think we ought to build it.
Right now, I have to get some sleep in preparation for the Cookout.

 

[ScubaFinder]

I hear you, I'll be at the cookout about 2:00, better late than never right. I've just started looking into the Arduino boards, so I'll need a bit of reading on those. For discussion sake, the "underwater" vehicle i was talking about would only need to be depth rated to about 100 feet max for my purposes, in fact 60 feet would make me happy. Any shipwreck I would be interested in finding would have to be shallow enough to be worked effectively by a small team without a lot of fancy equipment.

The real "gem" of the thing (to me) would be to put a depth sounder in the nose, and use that data to fly the vehicle at a prescribed depth above the bottom. I don't think it would be too difficult to capture NMEA depth data and use that to control the depth of the vehicle (and mag towfish). I had originally thought of doing this using the boat's depth data to control a towed device's depth above the actual bottom. I think that idea may be able to be worked into your design as well. Even if maybe you had a small wench on Robo-boat that could raise and lower the fish based on depth data.

My head is always full of ideas, sometimes you have to weed through the crap to find a gem. LOL

 

[FISHEYE]

I thought about building a robo boat several years ago.I was going to use a old auto helm connected to a small outboard motor.The auto helm i have has nema inputs and maybe outputs.I was going to use a laptop to have it run grids and use wireless to transmit the data to the mothership.The robo boat could pull a mag,SS and underwater camera.Or mount the camera and SS right to the boat for shallow water use.I even have a long range video transmitter.Was thinking about a r/c kill switch on the motor just in case it developed a mind of its own and decided to run away.

 

[GOHO]

I built my Parker into a simi Robo boat.... I have my laptop connected into a network that has my autopilot, depth, GPS, Gyro compass all connected. I can program my survey grid into my laptop and the boat will drive the grid... I still have to controll my speed but the vessel keeps a straight line and follows my grid perfectly.

I have 2 laptops onboard.. one drives the boat and collects my sidescan, the other collects mag and sub-bottom all simultainiously. works very well!

 

[ScubaFinder]

Cool Greg, I had thought about that route too but my original goal was to save on fuel while surveying. I had a pretty good plan to convert my SeaDoo into a robo-survey vessel, and I ran sonar surveys from it for a bit when we didn't have $600 to fill up the Conquistador. :-) I scrapped the SeaDoo project because I couldn't mount the mag hardware that close to the magneto on the motor. Sounds like you have a nice setup on your Parker for sure! Good seeing you Saturday, and I
got to meet Ropefish as well!

Jason

 

[GOHO]

Thanks Jason.. Same to ya.. good to see you and luis!

Yea the nice thing about it is i can Jam on music and go make a sandwich and get a drink come back to the helm and i still have a zero cross track error!

Just need a couple of new outboards now!

 

[ScubaFinder]

You've got me curious about something Greg. Does your Parker make the turns by itself (in a manner that doesn't bounce your towfish off the bottom) or do you manually turn at the end of each line? I assume you could plot the radius you want and the auto-nav system would follow it but that's a lot of setup work. That was one thing I could never figure out on Robo-Seadoo; how to make it turn properly and set up for the new line.

 

[GOHO]

I manually turn because i have to speed up anyway but when your running 3 mile lines turning is nothing.

The autopilot has a turn feature that i'm sure i could work into the grid but i dont mind the turns.. Got to stop and start recording anyway.

 

[ScubaFinder]

True, I wasn't even thinking about the record start and stop for each line. A true autonomous robo-boat will be quite the challenge once you start thinking about all of the stuff that needs to happen to perform a solid survey. How much does it hurt the survey quality to record the whole time and then trim the ends of the data in MagLog?

 

[AUVnav]

The easiest one to build is based off of a plastic kayak hull. The mag and sidescan can be mounted to the bottom of the hull, or better if one is mounted on an outrigger for separation and stability. Video cameras can be mounted to the bottom of the hull as well.

The seat is removed for the batteries.

To make things very simple, one can use 2 trolling motors and vary the thrust for turns. A little more complex, but still easy, is to pivot mount the trolling motors to another servo for turning. I would always use 2 motors.
I have also seen attempts to use bilge pumps for thrust....
The electronics can be placed in the front or back storage portions, or in pelican boxes depending on the config of the kayak.

One can also use a wireless network box to link all of this with a remote laptop....

Actually, these work very, very well!

Good luck!

 

[Booty Salvage]

Will that set up work for a cesium mag?

 

[ScubaFinder]

I'm sure a cesium mag would work if the pontoon spacing was wide enough. You can't have a G-882 running 3 feet from batteries, computers, and inverters without a fair amount of electromagnetic interference. I think if you shielded the inside of the kayak and spaced the pontoon out further it would probably work.

Jason

 

[AUVnav]

I have tried a few shielding techniques, one that seemed to work the best was to take coated copper wire, in a continuous loop configuration on the inside of the hull, with loops spaced about 1/4 apart. The spacing needs to be tested, as it relates to the frequencies you are trying to interrupt.
Another interesting factor to consider is the shape of the hull, depending on which one you use, is a parabolic arc. Foil lining the hull will tend to direct interference, so if that is planned, can work to an advantage as well.

There are versions that are basically 2 kayak hulls with spreader bars between them, sortof a Hobie Cat configuration, this could be used when you need the separation. The spreader bar is then a great place to mount the trolling motor(s)

Perhaps inspiration from some of the twin pontoon fishing boats would help!

Good luck!

 

[ropesfish]

Hi guys...Great to meet Jason @ the cookout as well as everyone else.
My oldest kid was here for a couple of days-went back to Virginia Beach to resume Navy life - first time I've seen him since he returned from scenic Afghanistan, so I haven't been on TNet to chime back in.

I see there is already a product out there that claims to do just about anything you can think of: http://www.melfisher.com/Library/InTheNews.asp
I've not seen any documentation, but it sounds awesome and expensive...Hope it works for them.

I've thought for some time that the correct packaging for an Autonomous Survey Boat would be something like Inflatable fishing pontoon boats and float tubes for anglers | Outcast for a hull with the bigass lead-acid deep cycle batteries housed in a waterproof box below the "deck" level to ensure a very low center of gravity. The electronics should be packaged to attach to the deck of the inflatable. Attach a couple of trolling motor-like propulsion pods -inflate the pontoons and you are in business.
There are a lot of different options for hulls, including semi-submersed - wave piercing hulls - I do like the kayak with pontoons. I believe Dr Wood @ FIT had a rig like that a year or two ago.
Instrumentation has to include above water collision threat detection and avoidance, as well as detecting and avoiding a grounding situation with something of a shallow water detection package.
In one scenario we have a solar powered charging station for the boat to autonomously find and attach to.
So...here is what I am going to do - First order of business is building a 3x4 foot radio controlled pontoon boat for a test platform. I have ordered the ArduinoPilot board and GPS module.
I think it might prove to be useful in a number of situations, some less obvious than others. Video camera with a satphone modem and you could monitor whatever spot you desire, anywhere in the world...
If anyone's interested post up or message me. I'll be in the garage here in scenic Roseland, making noise.
This is going to be fun!

 

[Salvor6]

Ocean Server makes a low cost AUV with mag and sidescan. You can deploy it from the beach and it will return in 5 hours. Download the data, charge the battery and send it out again. Under $50K.
Iver auv : New Low Cost AUV for Coastal applications

 

[Denniss]

Starting from zero, does anyone know how difficult it is to program one of these, would you have a separate file with waypoints
APM 2.6 Set - 3DRobotics Inc

I've looked at a lot of different approaches to a waterproof propulsion units, from bilge pumps to motors sealed in film canisters with wax. These guys did the same thing and came up with a solution. It looks like there were a lot of people facing the same problem judging by their kickstarter response
Home - BlueRobotics

Any idea on programing the autopilot to talk to the motors. I know what I want to do, I just have to figure out how to do it. Any "Complete Idiot" books you would recommend

I found a cheap data logger, for depth and gps $17. It beats a laptop
NMEA GPS Depth USB Data Logger Board | eBay

My depthsounder outputs nmea 0183 depth and GPS in RS 232, the logger only accepts TTL, I bought a converter RS232->TTL ($5 ebay) and rigging it up is my current project.[FONT=Arial, Helvetica] $XXRMC[/FONT]sentence is required from chartplotter. It collects the data on a removable USB flash drive. I should be able to make charts using Excel and Surfer

I'm looking forward to an interesting project

I would like to eventually put my Hummingbird 997 on it, but that's a long way down the road. I don't want to see it heading for the horizon and not answering any command

 

[ScubaFinder]

We have done some preliminary testing of autonomous navigation with a radio controlled boat as a test platform. I am pretty comfortable with our results so far, we have tested running grids and returning to launch. We hope to test this on one of our survey platforms next year as time and funding permit. The boat pictured below was sort of a home-built feasibility study. Not sure if we will move forward or not, but it was a fun experiment for me, I have been a Radio Control nut since I was 12. The advancements that have been made in the last 30 years are astonishing, almost scary in some instances. There are so many uses for this type of technology in our business, I'm glad we jumped in and got a handle on it now. This way when and if we do need it, we can deploy it rapidly.