1. Autonomous Surface Vehicle
ME 435: Stanton Coffey, Pat Gray, Jack Nagle, Sam Riahi, Matt Cline
ME 434: Jeff Roper, Brian Skoog, Stephanie McCarthy, Bobby Lee
ME Grad: Justin Selfridge
ECE: Alex, Bibek, Kouassi, Nimish, Shikha, Khakal, Sushil
ECE Grad: Loc
ECSU: George Harris, John Hayes

2. Overview Rules Sub Missions: Boat must be: Find the hot object
Less than 140 lb
Within 6’x3’x3’ dimensions
100% autonomous
Main Missions
Strength Test
Speed Gate
Navigation Course
Sub Missions:
Find the hot object
Extinguish the fire
Amphibious Landing
Waterfall

3. Current Work Electrical Box
Old Box
Problems with the box:
Wrong gauge wiring
Incorrect fuses
Loose wiring
Loose components
Disorganized
Poor weight distribution
Minimal USB inputs

4. Current Work Electrical Box (cont.)
New Box
Kill Switch
Corrections:
10 gauge wires to motors
40 amp fuses to motors
Battery in center
Velcro for components
One or two 5-port USB hubs
Compass mounted on the bottom instead of on the lid
Master kill switch
Speed Controllers
Battery
Micro Controller
Fuse Block
USB Hubs
Compass

5. Current Work ASV Trailer/Cart
An ASV trailer/cart is required for the competition
Used to take the ASV to the water
Used in dry land testing
Needs to be portable (fit in the truck)

6. Current Work Motor Blade Shields
By competition rules, the motor blades must be shielded
We want the shields to be removable (the previous years shield broke and we can’t remove it’s old parts)
The shields must still allow the water to flow without much loss of power and without changing the direction of the ASV

7. Current Work Logic The difficulties with Logic
Need to code for every possible scenario, like:
Buoys straight ahead
Buoys left or right
Small angle between buoys
Knowing when the ASV has passed between buoys
Want to do if buoys are not in sight
Programming in C++ is difficult and time consuming
small syntax errors can cause an entire day of looking for a small mistake (like declaring a variable as an ‘int’ instead of a ‘float’)

8. Current Work Logic (cont.) Distance Formulaq1
Travel (T)
Distance (D) q2
Stereo-vision with one camera
The angle a buoy makes with the ASV will change as the boat moves a specific distance and the distance can be calculated with this
Distance Formula

9. Current Work Logic (cont.) Distance output

10. Current Work Logic (cont.) Multiple Buoys Output
Important logic traits
Most decisions will be based on angles and not stereo-vision
Must pass through buoys at right angles
This provides a good setup for the next buoy pair
Currently at 350 lines of code

11. Current Work Vision Detection
OpenCV (Open source Computer Vision)
Blob Tracking
Region Growing
Removes static noise
Connects broken regions

12. Current Work Physical Alterations
Upgrade frame material
Install new pontoons from ECSU
Water proof electrical box and cameras
Future full-function testing
Dry Land
In-Water

13. Current Gantt Chart

14. Current Budget

15. Questions?