Design and building of autonomous surface vehicle
Catabot -- Autonomous Surface Vehicle with an Optimized Design for Environmental Monitoring
This paper presents an optimized design of research-oriented ASVs and a systematic
design evaluation methodology for reliable in-water sensing.
The objective is to minimize the interference on sensor readings by any ASV maneuver.
The design space includes motors and sensors locations.
In addition, this paper analyzes modularity -- i.e., the effects of new sensor's installation.
All prototype designs are thoroughly tested using hydrostatic analyses,
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations, and real-world field testings.
Quantitative metrics, including trim, pitch, velocity magnitude of flow, and turbulence,
are used to compare different configurations.
Our experiments show that a motor configuration at the back part of the straights
hulls is the most optimal design, resulting in high-quality data collection.
Overview of Catabot generation 1
Overview of Catabot generation 2
Overview of Catabot generation 2 movement
ASV deployment at China Lake, ME on October 6, 2020. (a) Proprioceptive data of ASV. The red shaded areas indicate when ASV adjusted its heading to counteract external forces while following the NW direction. (b) Coverage paths and measurements of surface water chlorophyll (RFU) linearly interpolated across an area of 0.04km^2. The red tracks indicate the same time intervals as the shaded area in (a). The red arrow is the starting direction.
Here is a video I have presented at OCEANS2020.