August 23, 2011 – 11:51 am
Firstly I would like to extend a massive thank you from the team to the lead sponsors Harwin Connectors and BMT Group!
www.harwin.com , www.bmt.org
Also the Engineering and Computing Consortium.
http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/et/consortia/engineeringandcomputing.aspx
And special thanks for the support from our uni & lab: University of the West of England & Bristol Robotics Laboratory.
www.uwe.ac.uk , www.brl.ac.uk
UWESub team rolled out the cutting edge Robot Operating System(ROS) fully and focused on developing the classic functionality of control, navigation and sonar systems.
With minimal time and budget the underwater robotics team managed to deploy the Robot Operating System fully and complete hardware upgrades in time for the 2011 SAUC-Europe.org competition.
The team qualified and performed brilliantly in the semi finials, completing a navigation task through a submerged gate and then proceeding to complete sonar scans of the harbour.In the end only 4 teams out of 10 were selected to compete in the finals. In the prize giving ceremony our team was presented with the “ Experimentation Award ” and 1000 euros, this was awarded for experimental research work involving sensor fusion and tactile whiskers.
Result:
Provisionally 6th Place!
Media links will be added as they are published.
Swimming Pool Test Right Click Open Link
Mouser Electronics on Right Click Open Link
Experimentation Award
100 Metre radius harbour sonar scan by UWESub
Saturday was the day of the semi finals. We had a successful run, we attempted to autonomously navigate through the gates, take a sonar scan, and follow the harbour wall using sonar localisation. Due to a minor software fault, Rinzler decided to stay in place and scan the harbour after navigating through the gates, this provided us with some really useful sonar images we can work with in the future.
The veteran teams demonstrated some impressive control and navigation. The rest of the teams performed admirably proving to be a useful day for all.
Sunday is Finals day. The top five teams competing are Lubeck, Girona, Ensta, Bremen and Heriot-Watt. The rest of the teams are competing in our own sub tournament, where we will be traced by the harbours blue view sonar and we have to impress the judges with some interesting control.
We will update when we have more information, and below are some photos from our semi finals run.
Finally a very happy birthday to Gareth!!!
The sub had a little peak at the sky before diving again.
Birthday boy with his cake!
Southampton-Birmingham during their semi final run.
UweSub have successfully qualified!!!!
After an unfortunate disqualification this morning, surfacing 30 seconds after our run time ended, UweSub have managed to successfully pass through the validation gates in a controlled manner.
Our AUV, Rinzler, is not enjoying the hot weather. We have suffered some minor overheating issues inside of the main tube. We have also suffered some minor battle damage during our first run, where Rinzler went to inspect the harbour wall and got slightly close! However due to the impressive strength of our main hull, we only suffered some small scratches.
We have three more runs, and plan to make use of our sonar to attempt some of the more complex challenges. We will update our progress as we go, and as always photos are below.
We’re almost half way through the event, and we are swimming in the pool!
Our control system is fully functioning and Rinzler can now hover in place at a defined depth, pitch and heading. This means we are able to drive our submarine around the test pool and stop in a position to perform tasks such as image processing or sonar scanning.
We have an aim to dive into the sea this afternoon or tomorrow morning. We are currently in the process of fine tuning our sonar to get the best possible images from it.
Below are some photos taken through the past couple of days, and we will update again soon!
Greetings from La Spezia, Italy.
After a two day journey we made it safely to the Nato Underwater Research Centre (NURC) for the SAUC-E 2011 competition! We have completed all of our checks and testing to ensure Rinzler is ready to go. In a couple of hours we should be in the water and will start testing our control software.
Through today and Wednesday we will be practising and performing tests with an aim to attempt a qualifying run on Thursday or Friday.
The car was fully loaded.
Overnight stay in Strasbourg.
Swiss Mountain Range.
Swiss Roadworks Robot.
The camp site.
The team
Robot internals.
Science is under way.
The Harbour.
We will add posts during the week to report on our progress.
Thanks for reading!
The UweSub team.
As part of our 2011 SAUC-e mission we decided to spring clean our website, moving from our old Google sites to a new self hosted WordPress blog.
We’ll make sure to keep the news updated with the latest goings on and the gallery stocked with photos from the development stages through to the competition.
