Test of MkIIA at Bellehaven Marina, VA

I did the first water test of the MkIIA robotboat. It sailed well until it ran into a small island. The wind changed and the boat was trying to tack. The tack led straight for the island. Other wise quite successful.

-WH

Progress on controls

For the MkII A (the yellow robotboat), I am using a netbook with Labview (National Instruments). This is very power inefficient for operational boats, but it is fantastic for de-bugging and operating a prototype. Most of our tests lasted much less than the 12 hour life of the MkIIA, so power efficiency is not important right now. Being able to enable and dis-able subsystems is very useful in de-bugging the code. Labview is robotic control for dummies.

The MkIIA is an upgrade of the MkII. I tested the MkIIA successfully in the parking lot next to AMS in Silver Spring MD

-WH

The latest test

We tested the boat in the water on 22 March 2009 on the Potomac River in Woodbridge, VA (USA)

We are a company

We incorporated our endeavor as Autonomous Marine Systems (AMS) this week. We intend to produce advanced robotic boats for the global oceanographic surveillance market.

Recently we developed some more sophisticated manufacturing techniques for the boat. The most exciting of these is the use of 3D printing to make the hulls and sails. This new manufacturing technique allows us to also "print in" the major elements of the control actuators (sail and rudder). The values of this are lower manufacturing costs and better performance.

Steady Progress

The boat is all painted. We verified the solar panels charged the batteries sufficiently well. The micro-controller works.

The micro controller is being upgraded to an FPGA. The psuedo code to operate the boat is nearly ready.

We may even have a small mission with the government to operate as a ground segment of a prototypical boat tracking device to be used for maritime security.

First test of MkIII Robotboat

Lake George, NY, USA 21 June 2008

The MkIII Robotboat was transported and assembled successfully. Solar panels powered the battery and the computer.

The control actuators work as expected. The test ran about 24 hours. It was very useful to have the boat dis assemble into small lightweight parts. The low weight (45 pounds) allowed transport by one person.

Next steps include finishing the structures with fiberglass and white paint; conditioning the batteries; adding the navigation code. Then it will be on to more extensive tests.

-Walter Holemans

The Mark III Robotboat

The Mark III Robotboat will be operational in May 2008. It should be a major improvement over the Mark II (the yellow one shown previously)!

-Walter Holemans