-The wires are contained in hoses to prevent water from soaking through the insulation and chasing the copper wire back through the hull penetrations.
-The hose to waterproof insulation interface seems to be sealed with Black RTV Silicone Compound.
-Hull penetrations are not visible but a common choice(on a budget) is to use hydraulic fittings or pneumatic barbs.
(Waterproof Connectors are rated on the "Ingress Protection" scale, IE: IP67, IP68, or IP69)
-To save money, cheap thrusters can be made by using Hobby King ESCs & BLDCs. The ESC can be potted in Epoxy, Silicone RTV compound, or even paraffin wax. Even cheaper still is to use computer case fans with the same waterproofing techniques. A more common solution is the use of commercially produced "bilge pumps" such as the one sold on Sparkfun.com, although this solution necessitates the procurement and implementation of appropriate H-Bridge drivers, and in some cases a DC-DC converter.
The MATE competition is focused more on the mechanical aspects of underwater vehicles and scientific missions, whereas the goals of the Robosub competition trend towards military applications with inertial navigation, sonar, and computer vision
Both competitions involve robots swimming with divers so safety is a driving consideration. MATE has stringent requirements about vehicle power supply from tether. Robosub allows the use of onboard batteries which can reduce the cost of propulsion systems, however as a consequence of the sophistication of internal electronics, AUVs imply cost barriers in computer processing electronics and sensors.
Comments
@Gerry,
If you read the IEEE article, the thrusters are homemade. They are cheap brushless outrunner motors and the cases are filled with oil.
Regards,
TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
Hmm the tweet this link failed for me too - must be the public wifi I'm on at the moment?
Anyone else having trouble loading the video, or is it just me?
I am already started quad copters. However, I am really deep consideration whether to try ROV or Quad, when to start autonomous system.
HobbyKing, McMaster-Carr, eBay, and SparkFun ... this is my kind of robot!
Forgot the link:
http://hackaday.com/2011/07/26/purdue-ieee-rov/
Very good design.
-Looks to be using commercial thrusters.
-The wires are contained in hoses to prevent water from soaking through the insulation and chasing the copper wire back through the hull penetrations.
-The hose to waterproof insulation interface seems to be sealed with Black RTV Silicone Compound.
-Hull penetrations are not visible but a common choice(on a budget) is to use hydraulic fittings or pneumatic barbs.
(Waterproof Connectors are rated on the "Ingress Protection" scale, IE: IP67, IP68, or IP69)
-To save money, cheap thrusters can be made by using Hobby King ESCs & BLDCs. The ESC can be potted in Epoxy, Silicone RTV compound, or even paraffin wax. Even cheaper still is to use computer case fans with the same waterproofing techniques. A more common solution is the use of commercially produced "bilge pumps" such as the one sold on Sparkfun.com, although this solution necessitates the procurement and implementation of appropriate H-Bridge drivers, and in some cases a DC-DC converter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlsQhqXlw8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zuVH87YsUg&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoCnXOAIJTI&feature=related
-The syntactic foam is placed high on the ROV to improve stability in pitch & roll by providing a high center of buoyancy.
Both MATE & the AUVSI Foundation hold annual student competitions in underwater robotics.
http://www.materover.org/main/index.php
http://www.robosub.org
The MATE competition is focused more on the mechanical aspects of underwater vehicles and scientific missions, whereas the goals of the Robosub competition trend towards military applications with inertial navigation, sonar, and computer vision
Both competitions involve robots swimming with divers so safety is a driving consideration. MATE has stringent requirements about vehicle power supply from tether. Robosub allows the use of onboard batteries which can reduce the cost of propulsion systems, however as a consequence of the sophistication of internal electronics, AUVs imply cost barriers in computer processing electronics and sensors.