Welcome

RamSub 2011-AUV is the 10th entry from the University of Rhode Island in the AUVSI International AUV competition. Electronics developed for URI's 2009 RamSub AUV and the 2010 RAMboat platform have been adapted to be URI's 2011 AUV, in order to accomplish the missions planned for the competition in San Diego, CA. With limited funds and the need for both AUV and ASV electronics, the design approach has been that the AUV and ASV use compatible electronics where possible. This includes a custom 5282 embedded microcontroller mission computer with a general purpose timer for servo control and pulse accumulation, A2D sensing, UDP communications, and a wireless hub for communications and programming, and a new FitPC vision computer along with a USB camera and Phigits IMU. Additionally a Torpedo firing system was developed for this year's competition and the legacy "dart dropper" system was taken from a previous generation AUV.

Recent Events

Above: Sonar finally worked at the AUVSI AUV Competition Finals however the navigation code unfornately had no prior testing. The vehicle was programmed to navigate to the second pinger but the vehicle was unsuccessful at picking up the vase so the second pinger was never turned on. The vehicle then thought the first pinger was the second and reran the navigation code but was already on top of the active pinger. All in All a decent last run for the RamSub - July 17, 2011.

Above: Mixed feelings about vision and sonar capablitity on the first day of qualifiers. Vision proved to be very successful at the practice run in the morning but lost confidence in the afternoon qualifier run when the system failed to identify buoys. Sonar had issues in the a.m. practice run and also was confused at the qualifying run when realizing that the frequency to detect would not be given but the system would have to search for the active pinger of two separate projectors at different frequencies. As unfortunate as the two runs were, the team learned a lot about vision and sonar processing at the TRANSDEC facility. After hours practice at the hotel pool should allow both systems to work out the bugs and put us in good position for successful missions on the last day of qualifiers. - July 15, 2011.

"Will 9:40 give us enough time?" ~ Ken Critz

"Time for what?" ~ Andy Bird

"I don't know...sleep and relaxin?" ~ Ken Critz

"What are we doin here? Are we sleepin or are we winnin?" ~ Andy Bird (after testing until 2 am the previous night)

Above: Thursday night testing turned into Friday morning success when the team executed successful buoy bumping, sonar homing and toypedo launching missions - July 15, 2011.

Above: The team before second run on Day 2 of practice runs - July 14, 2011.

"...That's why you need to go fully autonomous, put it in the water and let it be smart." ~ Ken Critz

"What's that saying? If you love something let it go and if it comes back..." ~ Kevin Hopkins

Above: Compass test before first practice run at TRANSDEC - July 13, 2011.

Above: Vision channel navigation testing - July 10, 2011.

"Every year is the best." ~ Rick Kollanda

Above: AUV Final Tasks - July 8, 2011.

Above: AUV Sonar/Mission Testing at Tootell Aquatic Center - July 8, 2011.

Note: Hover over image to pause.

 

Above: AUV electronics housing being mounted to the new A-frame members. - July 4, 2011. In photo: Matt Anderson

Above: AUV Sonar/Mission Testing - June 21, 2011.

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RamSub 11

URI's student AUV, based primarily on the RamSub2009 design, is a stable platform first designed in 2007 and has been much improved upon over the years and particularly for the 2011 AUV competition. An Acrylic cylindrical electronics housing is mounted atop two newly machined Delryn A-frame members. A four element, passive USBL Sonar array is mounted beneath the electronics housing and provides acoustic localization of the pinger used in the final task of the competition. RamSub electronics were adapted to suite both of URI's student AUV and ASV platforms. The motor power is delivered through a separate, isolated circuit than the electronics and has 2 independent Lithium-Poly batteries in parallel. The electronics subsystems include a FitPC running C++ code on a Ubuntu Linux OS for image processing, a custom Netburner 5282 embedded microcontroller mission computer, a custom sonar processing board with a Netburner 5213 microcontroller, a wireless hub for communication and programming, and a custom power management board. The power board combines two system batteries and produces supply voltages, monitors consumption, optically isolated computers, and allows radio control takeover of motors. RAMboat power consists of two 14.8 volt, 6.4Ahr batteries for motor power and two 14.8V 6.4Ahr system batteries. Two dual channel motor controllers sit atop the power board to provide power to the quad Seabotix thrusters that are setup in a Ver-Trans configuration. The mission computer runs a linked list table of mission legs which include speed, heading, depth, leg timeout, and action requests. The action requests are designed to synchronize the mission and vision systems during specific tasks for vision guidance during the task and launch control from the Fit PC via UDP communications. The vision analysis performed on FitPC can be used to provide leg modifiers which control vessel guidance as well as torpedo launching and dart dropping.