Anna

It has been a long time since I have posted, however things haven’t stopped in the autonomous sailing group. We have built and tested a quiet stable RC Trimaran, the head-designer of the boat is Rob. I have included the sketchup file here: Trimaran_AutonomousSailing.skp. And you can visit: http://sailingdrone.wikispaces.com/PVC+Trimaran for a bit more details (I warn you its messy).

Sailing with it was surprisingly successful. The Trimaran: Anna, was stable enough to carry a GO-pro and deliver pretty nice images. In the movie you see some of the footage. We also tested some other prototypes, however Anna is by far the most interesting one. It is very modular and highly mobile, it weights only 10 kilos.

Our plans are to use the APM and Ardupilot to achieve autonomousity. And it is becoming more and more realizable; especially since Rik Bootsman has come up with a way to make a cheap wind sensor, see picture. You can read more about this sensor here: http://rikbootsman.com/

Right now we are looking for anybody who can help us with the software and the integration of APM and Ardupilot. So if your interested, send me message and/or join the group.

Your feedback is more than welcome. And if you want to rebuild your the trimaran and you need help or have questions, please send me a message.

Cheers,

Sina

Platform for Ardupilot

Windsensor (couldn't turn the picture 90 degrees)

Disassembled Trimaran

Servo Platform

Since my last post I have been working on building a cheap RC sailboat. And I must say that the feedback I got from the community has been very helpful. So special thanks to people who showed their interest and gave me tips.

My aim is to eventually build an autonomous sailor, and a RC one is just a step in between. The “Catamaran” which you see in the pictures is radio controlled and I have tested it on water. However there is more work to do, the final RC boat will be even more cheaper and better. The reason for that is because I want to provide an accessible platform, which is easily built and is not as expensive as a toy boat. In that way anybody interested can start developing autonomous sailors. Within two weeks I hope to have the final RC version and I will share the instructions with you.

I am also going to prepare five kits with all the materials and instructions you’ll need to build one, excluding the electronics.

So, if you are interested to get involved mail to sina.sailorkit@gmail.comand I will ship one of the kits to you, if your on time. You don’t need to pay.

If you have received the kit, I would appreciate if you also join the autonomous sailor group and share your experience with the community.

Note I can only provide five kits :)

Cheers,

Sina

Recently I have joined this community. However, I am not working on building a UAV but a DIY autonomous sailing boat. It might not fly but such a boat can use the technology developed for UAVs.

With a lot of help from a good friend I have been able to design a small sailing boot made from PVC, which has no electronics in it, yet. It only sails in one direction :D.

The reason we are building it from scratch and haven’t bought a RC boot is because we want to make it as cheap and accessible as possible. The little PVC boat is designed very generic or modular. In that way every one who is interested in building one can adjust the size or the position of the parts as they wish to. Anyway you can see the boat and how it is made here. It is an instructable.

Our next step is towards make an autonomous sailing is to make the current boat remote controlled. I think the main requirements for this step are that it should stay modular and waterproof. So the simplest idea is to put all the servos in a waterproof lunchbox, make very small holes to attach the servos to the moving parts, using thin ropes. And finally find a way to attach the box to the boat.

I will post the PVC RC boat as soon as I have successfully tested it. Nevertheless I would be very glad to receive tips or examples, which can help me to make the next step.

I’ll keep you updated. And please don’t hesitate to give feedback.

Cheers,

Sina.