Underwater Robots for Everyone 145
Dirak writes "A small 112-pound ocean glider named Spray is the first autonomous underwater vehicle to cross the Gulf Stream underwater. Launched September 11, 2004, it has been slowly making 12 miles per day measuring various properties of the ocean. Spray spent 15 minutes three times a day on the surface to relay its position and information about ocean conditions and then glided back down to 3,300-feet depth ." And reader RoboFreak writes "Two Computer Science students at Brigham Young University-Hawaii have developed a Low Cost Autonomous Underwater Vehicle. The students also entered their robot, LUV, in the AUVSI and ONR's 7th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition at San Diego, CA and competed against top Ivy-League teams. Their robot received recognition in the form of an award at this competition. This robot was designed with a budget of only about $600 and seems to be the cheapest AUV around. One of the AUV designers' interview conducted by Amit Kr Chanda of The Times of India is available here."
CUAUV (Score:3, Informative)
More Details (Score:5, Informative)
You can see the data it sent back over the IRIDIUM phone network every seven hours at these pages:
WHOI Instument page about the SPRAY glider [whoi.edu]
Our real-time plots page [whoi.edu]
Make sure you check out the plot of velocities when it got caught in the gulf stream [whoi.edu]
Also particularly interesting are the Continuous Temperature plot [whoi.edu]
and the Continuous Salinity (salt content) profile. [whoi.edu]
And you can also view the path it took to Bermuda [whoi.edu]
We hope to launch it again early next year, possibly for a roundtrip around Bermuda.
Re:The design is astounding (Score:4, Informative)
At the surface we then rotate one of the battery packs 90 from center to aim the GPS receiver and IRIDIUM antenna which are embedded in the wings at the sky. really a neat design. The pitch of the vehicle is controlled by moving the second battery pack for and aft within the housing, to create the proper atittude.
Press Release on the SPRAY glider (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why is the oil sac on the back? (Score:4, Informative)
Solidworks (Score:3, Informative)
A solid modelling open source program of comparable quality would make real difference to small manufacturing companies. I am suprised nothing like this has appeared already, actually.
Re:CUAUV (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So why is the buoyancy changed? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the mass stays the same. But that doesn't matter when it comes to buoyancy. The mass-to-volume ratio is the determining factor. May seem counterintuitive, but it works.