Pontoon Remote Survey Vehicle (RSV)

Hi All,

I have started a little aquatic vehicle project that will be used to do depth mapping of the various ponds, lakes, and canals where I live in southern Florida. The mapping will allow the owners to determine their silt levels and silting rates.

My RSV is based on a similar RSV, only smaller, that appeared in the July/August 2010 issue of Robot Magazine and can be seen here: eTrac RSV

I chose to use fiberglass pontoons for a .60 size R/C plane and can be seen here:

The pontoons are manufactured by Great Planes and can be found at Tower Hobbies.

For propulsion I was originally going to build a couple of small outboard electric motors using Johnson-Mayfair 750GPM bait pump cartridges and 50mm Robbe three bladed propellers.

The housing for the bait pump cartridges was going to take a little bit of machining and the jaws in my Tag lathe still needed to be machined to allow me to chuck up plastic pipe couplers that are bigger than 1" in diameter.

Since I like Traxxas products, I found that the geared propulsion system for the discontinued Villain R/C racing boat might fill the bill as there are quite a few of the legacy Villain parts to be had on eBay for cheap:-).

So I downloaded the Villain exploded hull and drive train views and the parts list and proceeded to buy what I needed to put together two of the Villain geared propulsion drive trains.

At this time, while searching for Villain parts on Amazon, I found one last Villain built hull for sale and proceeded to order it so that I can build up a competition autonomous boat for competitions like the Sparkfun AVC only on the reservoir.

I began the installation of the Villain drive trains by cutting two sections out of the right pontoon just aft of the wire connecting bridge mounting points. I reinforced the sides and ribs of the pontoon, where I removed the fiberglass glass sections, with thin strips of poplar wood.

The toughest part of mounting the drive train was spotting the hole for the stuffing tube in the pontoon stern plate and getting clearance for the motor under one of the pontoon ribs. Pictures of the installation are below:

550 motor_reduction gears_and stuffing tube

Stuffing tube exit on stern plate

The propeller drive shaft is attached to a universal joint that is coupled to a short propeller shaft that is supported by an outdrive housing that is attached to a hinged trim support that allows the pitch of the propeller to be varied up and down vertically. I plan to epoxy the motor mount to the bottom of the hull once I have installed the rest of the propulsion hardware beyond the stern plate.

Right and Left Pontoons with Bridge

More build details and pictures to come.

Regards,

TCIII ArduBoat Developer

@Dragos,

Here is Burkhard's original file:

#include <SoftwareSerial.h>

SoftwareSerial sonar(10, 11); // RX, TX
SoftwareSerial gps(8,9);
String inputString1 = "";
String inputString2 = "";         // a string to hold incoming data
boolean stringComplete = false; // whether the string is complete
int a=0;
int Stelle = 1;
String Depth1;
String Depth2;
String Depth3;
String Depth4;

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
sonar.begin(4800);
gps.begin(9600);
inputString1.reserve(200);
inputString2.reserve(200);
}

void loop() {
sonar.listen();
while(a==0){
    while (sonar.available()) {
      char inChar = (char)sonar.read();
      inputString1 += inChar;
      if (inChar == '\n') {
        stringComplete = true;
      }
    }
    if (stringComplete) {
      if (inputString1.startsWith("$SDDBT")){
        a=1;

     Serial.print(inputString1);

    }
      inputString1 = "";
      stringComplete = false;
    }
}
    gps.listen();
   while(a==1){
    while (gps.available()) {
    char inChar = (char)gps.read();
    inputString2 += inChar;
    if (inChar == '\n') {
      stringComplete = true;
    }
}
if (stringComplete) {
    if (inputString2.startsWith("$GPRMC")){
      Serial.print(inputString2);

    a=0;

}
    inputString2 = "";
    stringComplete = false;
}
}
}

Regards,

TCIII AVD

Replies

- Dragos > Rafael B February 1, 2015 at 11:31am
  
  Yes, at the end of the cable on red wire I have a
  black label sticked on it and there it is written
  the explanation of each color wire. And there is
  an RXA and an RXB. In the manual these 2 wires
  appear to be spare. RXA is white and RXB is white/orange.
- Admin
  
  Thomas J Coyle III > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 12:31pm
  
  @Dragos,
  
  There is no need to use either of the differential RXA or RXB lines. Only TXB of the differential TXA and TXB lines.
  
  Regards,
  
  TCIII AVD
- Dragos > Thomas J Coyle III February 1, 2015 at 12:39pm
  
  Thomas, without connecting RXA to the
  TX of SoftwareSerial port used for sonar
  it is not working properly. In this moment
  I have the following:
  SoftwareSerial sonar(6, 5, true) and TXA is
  connected to pin 6 (RX on serial) and RXA is
  connected to pin 5 (TX on serial). And is working
  perfectly.
  If I am not connecting RXA I cannot parse data, because
  the data is not in normal format, I have a lot of unusefull
  characters and not the normal strings. The data is corrupt
  in this case.
- Admin
  
  Thomas J Coyle III > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 5:42am
  
  @Dragos,
  
  I wish that I could be of more help, but without being there to help you troubleshoot I do not know of anymore ways that I can help you out.
  
  I do not think that using an Arduino Uno makes any difference. Make the setup exactly as I have done and it should work.
  
  Check out this blog post: Link
  
  Regards,
  
  TCIII AVD
- Dragos > Thomas J Coyle III February 1, 2015 at 6:09am
  
  Ok, I managed to solve it. The cable from Intelliducer is
  having another 2 wires, RXA and RXB. I connect TXA and RXA to
  the softwareserial pins and is working. When I am not connecting
  RXA wire is not working.
  
  Regards,
  Dragos
- Dragos > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 10:36am
  
  In the manual of Intelliducer RX wires are not stated,
  the 2 wires that are RX apear to be, in the manual,
  spare wires. But is normal to use TX and RX, after all
  is a serial connection.
  Did you use also RX wire?
  
  In any case I managed it after all, thanks again for help.
  I will open my own thread to present my bait boat, is almost
  complete, together with a Ground station.
  
  Best regards,
  Dragos
- Dragos > Thomas J Coyle III February 1, 2015 at 5:48am
  
  Thanks anyway Thomas...
  I've checked topic of Burkhard, it was one of the first
  topics I read when I joined the forum, I didn't found there
  any .ino file, the only one I have is yours. I've tried it
  but without succes. I can output the NMEA data from Gps but
  not from sonar. Of course I have tried only with Gps and only
  with sonar, if trying with the original program I have no output
  data. I will keep trying.
  
  Thanks for the help.
  Regards,
  Dragos
- Admin
  
  Thomas J Coyle III > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 6:14am
  
  @Dragos,
  
  Here is Burkhard's original file:
  
  #include <SoftwareSerial.h>
  
  SoftwareSerial sonar(10, 11); // RX, TX
  SoftwareSerial gps(8,9);
  String inputString1 = "";
  String inputString2 = "";         // a string to hold incoming data
  boolean stringComplete = false; // whether the string is complete
  int a=0;
  int Stelle = 1;
  String Depth1;
  String Depth2;
  String Depth3;
  String Depth4;
  
  void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  sonar.begin(4800);
  gps.begin(9600);
  inputString1.reserve(200);
  inputString2.reserve(200);
  }
  
  void loop() {
  sonar.listen();
  while(a==0){
      while (sonar.available()) {
        char inChar = (char)sonar.read();
        inputString1 += inChar;
        if (inChar == '\n') {
          stringComplete = true;
        }
      }
      if (stringComplete) {
        if (inputString1.startsWith("$SDDBT")){
          a=1;
  
       Serial.print(inputString1);
  
      }
        inputString1 = "";
        stringComplete = false;
      }
  }
      gps.listen();
     while(a==1){
      while (gps.available()) {
      char inChar = (char)gps.read();
      inputString2 += inChar;
      if (inChar == '\n') {
        stringComplete = true;
      }
  }
  if (stringComplete) {
      if (inputString2.startsWith("$GPRMC")){
        Serial.print(inputString2);
  
      a=0;
  
  }
      inputString2 = "";
      stringComplete = false;
  }
  }
  }
  
  Regards,
  
  TCIII AVD
- Dragos > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 4:03am
  
  In my case the softwareserial defined for sonar is outputting something
  only if I am using inverted parameter, SoftwareSerial sonar(6, 5, true).
  But I have a lot of strange characters, among them I can see some times
  SDDBT and SDDPT, without $ character. Any ideas?
- Admin
  
  Thomas J Coyle III > Dragos February 1, 2015 at 5:25am
  
  @Dragos,
  
  Are you using an Intelliducer NMEA 0183 or 2000? There is a difference.
  
  I used the inverted signal line of the differential pair and did not use "true" in the serial line define.
  
  Regards,
  
  TCIII AVD

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