Post on 17-Oct-2020
30 September 2016
Needs Assessment
Team 18
Design and Development of an Autonomous Surface Watercraft
AUVSI RoboBoat
Members:
Donald Gahres – deg12c
Kyle Ladyko – kel14b
Samuel Nauditt – san14d
Teresa Patterson – tap14e
Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Jonathan Clark
Sponsor:
Dr. Damion Dunlap, NSWC-PCD
Instructors:
Dr. Nikhil Gupta
Dr. Chiang Shih
Team 18 Design and Development of an Autonomous Surface Watercraft
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Table of Contents
Table of Figures.......................................................................................................................................... iii
Table of Tables ........................................................................................................................................... iii
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................................ iv
1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................... 1
2. Project Definition ................................................................................................................................ 1
2.1 Background Research ................................................................................................................... 1
2.2 Needs Statement ............................................................................................................................ 2
2.3 Goal Statement and Objectives ..................................................................................................... 3
2.4 Constraints .................................................................................................................................... 3
2.5 Methodology and Scheduling ....................................................................................................... 5
3. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................... 7
4. References ............................................................................................................................................ 8
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Table of Figures Figure 1: 2016 RoboBoat lake course. ......................................................................................................... 2
Figure 2: Gantt Chart. .................................................................................................................................. 6
Table of Tables Table 1: Weight and Dimension Restrictions. ............................................................................................. 3
Table 2: HOQ. .............................................................................................................................................. 7
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ABSTRACT The AUVSI RoboBoat Competition is an international event that began in 2010 and is held
annually in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Though the rules for the 2010 – 2016 competitions are
posted, the rules for the 2017 competition have not surfaced yet; a teaser video on the
Robonation website states that it will be held in Daytona Beach, FL, and that it will offer new
and exciting challenges to participating teams. Team 18 is the first team at the FAMU-FSU
College of Engineering that has participated in the RoboBoat project, and it also intends to be the
first team to represent the FAMU-FSU COE in the competition by designing, developing, and
testing a vehicle that meets competition requirements posted on the Robonation website. As this
is the first venture into the RoboBoat competition, Team 18 has spent time reviewing similar
projects completed by FAMU-FSU COE students, namely RoboSub, and can utilize these
similarities to determine a preliminary cost, components necessary, and to salvage parts for
continued use. The next steps for the project lead up to an early prototype build to facilitate the
ultimate goal of producing a fully functional, fully autonomous boat that will go on to compete.
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1. Introduction In past senior design years, groups were assigned a similar project known as the RoboSub. This
is the first year that a senior design group will be attempting to design an autonomous watercraft
that operates on the surface of the water, otherwise known as RoboBoat. Attempting the
RoboBoat competition for the first time is ambitious, but the team has clear objectives in order to
deliver a functional prototype. The RoboBoat must autonomously navigate a closed course by
detecting and avoiding buoy obstacles, detect and navigate pinging underwater beacons, launch
and recover an underwater vehicle, and dock itself.
At this point the constraints and tasks for this year’s competition are assumed to be the same as
last year’s competition. If any rules are changed or added, the needs assessment for RoboBoat
will be updated accordingly. The main goal for Team 18 is to accelerate the schedule to allow for
rapid iterations of a working prototype, thus creating the best competition ready craft possible.
Each competition task will be attempted to the best of the team’s ability, although some tasks
may become secondary to allow for better refinement of achievable tasks.
2. Project Definition
2.1 Background Research The AUVSI RoboBoat competition is held annually with university and secondary schools
attending from around the world. The competition rules are generally the same with little
changes made each year1. These rules or tasks include, object detection including various shapes
and colors, tagging a dock with a Velcro patch, ultrasonic navigation, speed trials, and the launch
and recovery of a small autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV). The competition map of the
lake course with outlined tasks can be found below in Figure 1. Past teams have generally been
university engineering organizations or engineering capstone projects similar to the FAMU-FSU
senior design projects. The designs range in complexity and cost, with some teams having
equipment costs upwards of $10, 0001.
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Figure 1: 2016 RoboBoat lake course.
Because FAMU-FSU COE has never attempted the RoboBoat competition before, there are no
previous designs to study. Therefore, it is essential to research the competitors from previous
years in order to determine which designs work best for the present competition. It is most
beneficial to study the boats from previous years in order to iterate and perfect previous designs
into Team 18’s operational RoboBoat. Although already started, it is advantageous to research
the documents and deliverables of previous competitors to determine the best course of action for
our design. This information can include but is not limited to hull design, propulsion, object
detection equipment, neural networking, on-board computing, and power supply. Accessing this
information allows Team 18 to design with a good understanding of what already works, instead
of starting from the ground up.
2.2 Needs Statement The development of an autonomous water vehicle has been used in senior design for many years.
However, the most notable past projects are submersibles such as RoboSub. This project focuses
instead on an above water vehicle and will be made to complete the objectives stated in the
competition rules2. The design of this vehicle will borrow parts and obtain advice from the 2016
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RoboSub Senior Design Team. It will also be borrowing from tried and true models utilized by
other teams and businesses.
“Team 18 needs to create an autonomous boat capable of traversing the RoboBoat competition
course and abides by the rules set by AUVSI and Robonation.”
2.3 Goal Statement and Objectives “Design and optimize an autonomous watercraft so that it is capable of navigating an obstacle
course and completing various tasks set forth by the AUVSI RoboBoat competition.”
Objectives:
Design vehicle.
Purchase or manufacture all components.
Develop prototypes for testing.
Integrate mechatronics of vehicle.
Test mechatronic systems of vehicle.
Test manual control of vehicle.
Test autonomy of vehicle.
Ensure safety at all times.
Compete in the 2017 RoboBoat Competition.
2.4 Constraints Table 1: Weight and Dimension Restrictions.
Constraints for the vehicle are clearly laid out by the AUVSI Foundation within the rules for the
6th
Annual International RoboBoat Competition2. Most importantly are the restrictions for weight
and dimension due to the fact that teams may be disqualified if these are broken. If the team does
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not construct a vehicle that abides by what is given, they will be unable to compete. The team
plans to aim to construct a vehicle that falls within the middle to lower weight restrictions to
capitalize on the point bonus.
Other requirements are listed in the Vehicle Requirements section of the rules and are as follows:
Autonomy: the vehicle must be fully autotonomous and all decisions must be taken
onboard the ASV.
Buoyancy: the vehicle must be positively buoyant and must remain buoyant for at least
30 minutes.
Communication: the vehicle cannot send or receive any control information while in
autonomous mode. Communication is allowed between the vehicle and sub-systems such
as an AUV.
Deployable: the vehicle must have its own 3 or 4 points harness for crane deployment.
Energy Source: the vehicle must use self-contained electrical energy source. Sailboats
are permitted.
Kill Switch: the vehicle must have at least one 1.5in diameter red button located on the
vehicle that, when actuated, must disconnect power from all motors and actuators.
e-Kill Switch: in addition to the physical kill-switch, the vehicle must have at least one
remote kill switch that provides the same functionality.
Payload: the vehicle must have a place to mount a GoPro (or similar) camera.
Payload location: it must have an unobstructed view of the front of the vehicle.
Propulsion: any propulsion system is fine (thruster, paddle, etc.), but moving parts must
have a shroud.
Remote-controllable: the vehicle must be remote-controllable to be brought back to the
dock.
Safety: all sharp, pointy, moving or sensitive parts must be covered and marked.
Size: the vehicle must fit within a six feet, by three feet, by three feet "box".
Surface: the vehicle must float or use ground effect of the water. Mostly
submerged/flying vehicles are forbidden.
Towable: the vehicle must have a tow harness installed at all times.
Waterproof: the vehicle must be rain/splash resistant.
Weight: the vehicle must be 140 lbs. or less.
Interference
o Any vehicle entangled in, dragging, pushing or damaging competition elements or
the landscape is interfering.
o Any vehicle leave its assigned course is interfering.
o Interference will result in a run termination or disqualification, at the judge’s
discretion.
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2.5 Methodology and Scheduling To maximize team efficiency, it was decided to hold team meetings at least once each week
while keeping regular correspondence through email, text, or group messaging. After attending a
conference call with the team sponsor, Damion Dunlap, and meeting with the faculty advisor, Dr.
Clark, the team also decided to check in with Damion every two weeks and Dr. Clark every
week. These meetings are chronicled and the minutes are made available to the whole team the
night following the meeting.
After speaking with Dr. Clark, it was decided that the team would create a schedule that allowed
for the construction of a prototype that can be iterated early in the Fall 2016 semester. This will
ensure that the Spring 2017 semester will progress smoothly when the team proceeds with the
build for the competition. To maximize the use of time, a Gantt chart was created with some
loose estimates for the rest of the Fall 2016 semester. The team expects to follow it as closely as
possible for self-imposed design deadlines, but deadlines for the deliverables laid out by the
syllabus are concrete. The Gantt chart does not show following meetings with either Damion
Dunlap or Dr. Clark, as it is focusing on milestones and these meetings are to be set as a
recurring event. The chart also includes time allotted to construct PowerPoints, documents,
webpages, and posters for the milestones listed in bold in the line for that activity rather than
creating a row of sub-activities.
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Figure 2: Gantt Chart.
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To identify the most important subsystems of the project as a whole, a House of Quality (HOQ)
was constructed so that the base characteristics could be weighted numerically. This is seen in
Table 2. The HOQ indicates that thrust, the frame or hull, and the weight of the vehicle are the
most important qualities, which are in line with the restrictions given by AUVSI.
Table 2: HOQ.
3. Conclusion Due to the nature of the project, Team 18 had to do thorough research on boats as well as AUV,
ROV, and other unmanned systems to better serve in addressing the problem provided. Because
the tasks laid out for the RoboBoat to accomplish are detailed, it enabled the team to proceed
with investigating them – most importantly the design of the boat, how to make it autonomous,
and how to proceed with image tracking. As the rules for the 2017 competition are not available
yet, the team decided to comb through all six rule sets for the 2010 – 2016 competitions to best
prepare for the task at hand.
Team 18 plans to speak with last year’s Team 23 to learn more about the RoboSub that was built
and iterated upon. Any parts that can be scavenged for use on RoboBoat will be, and Team 18
hopes to have a functioning prototype in the water by the middle of October.
Customer
Requirements
Customer
ImportanceDimensions Buoyancy Weight Material Thrust Sensors Frame/Hull
Electronics
Housing
Cost 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
Size 4 5 3 5 5 4
Durability 2 5 3 3
Maneuverability 5 3 2 5 5 5 5
Safety 5 4 5 3 5
60 47 70 55 95 50 87 56
11.5% 9.0% 13.5% 10.6% 18.3% 9.6% 16.7% 10.8%
4 8 3 6 1 7 2 5
Engineering Characteristics
Ʃ (CI x EC)
Relative Weight
Ranking
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4. References
[1] “RoboBoat” AUVSI Foundation. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.
< http://www.auvsifoundation.org/foundation/competitions/roboboat >
[2] “The 2016 Final Rules and Task Descriptions”. AUVSI Foundation. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.
< https://s3.amazonaws.com/com.felixpageau.roboboat/RoboBoat+2016+Final+Rules.pdf >