An introduction

We are a group of three year two Electrical Engineering and Electronics (EEE) students, doing a project with the aim of designing and implementing an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV).

To reach these aims we have six weeks to produce a result, on the final week we’ll have a bench inspection along with a poster to display its design information and thought process. This means we have 5 Friday laboratory sessions to create the AUV.

The team is composed of:

Steven Bridge - The project manager and designer, this means he will be overseeing and managing the team effectively to succeed in our goal, as a designer he will be contributing to the circuit design.

Likhitha Ala – Developer and designer, being the developer means Likhitha will do majority of the coding for the AUV, whilst also assisting in circuit design and implementation.

Dominic Stevenson – Technical Writer, responsible for the writing up the report, recording progress through the blog and designing the poster. During the lab sessions Dom will assist the others in achieving their goals.

Research & Components:

So far we have done a couple of research sessions and have decided on a range of components, to control the AUV and make it autonomous we will be using an Arduino. This is because it’s relatively cheap and powerful. It enables us and others to add different sensors and their outputs, which then can be used to control the motor system.

We will be using DC motors to propel the AUV through the water, these will then need to be waterproofed as much as possible even though many websites insinuate they do have an okay lifespan when submerged. To enable the motors to spin in both directions we will be using an h-bridge.

For more effective propulsion we will be adding model boat propellers to the shafts of the motors.

Casing we will be using just a simple plastic bottle, opening it up to put the electronics in then using sealant to then make sure no water can then get in.

Our initial sensor will be an ultrasound component, another group is composing the sensor system for an AUC and so we look to potentially combining both projects.

So what next?

We have a laboratory session on 6^th of February, here we will check if the components we have ordered are correct and that they are working as they should. Once we have established this we will progress to developing code for the Arduino and start with the circuit design.

A Gantt chart for our laboratory sessions has been produced below

We'll continue blogging throughout the process to show you our development and progress.