An iteration of the 1980`s Outland Technologies ROV design using horzontal acrylic tube camera pressure housing main difference are rear thrusters (angled and the protective arms /landing gear/ballast ) i like it ,back then it cost 1400 USD and of course had no autonomous abilities . "Dope on a Rope" in the parlance of the day in the industry .
You can guard your umbilical using hollow poly braid rope for clean buoyancy and chafe protection , i used a 8' piece of .250" alum rod as a needle to thread cable /wire through the poly 3/8" (alway make rope longer than cable because it will "Shrink" in length when filled with umbilical ) .
I have reviewed the assembly instructions and it did not appear to have enough room up front for a GoPro camera. However, you might want to contact OpenROV to see if it is really possible.
I will say one thing, this is not a ROV that you just throw together in a weekend. It is a very complex assembly process. Maybe the newer version 2.5 will be simpler and less complex to assemble.
I looked at this when you were just started looking for Kickstarter backers.
It is great to see you were so successful and now have a business producing your really excellent ROV.
As for autonomous operation, I think that is a really worthwhile direction for you to be headed in.
Heading and depth are certainly of value, but you either need the absolute position information available from GPS or relative information that can be gleaned from your environment.
At a minimum I would think both bottom reporting and forward looking SONAR could be useful (works a lot better in the water than in air) and some sort of phased array sonar could give you a pretty good idea of what was in front of you.
For absolute position information from GPS you would either have to be tethered to some sort of easily entangled float or surface periodically.
David from OpenROV here. Thanks for sharing this here. We're coming out with a new depth/IMU board next week, which opens up all sorts of opportunities for autonomy and closed loop control. Your sweet spot!
Comments
I see one of these in my future for sure.
An iteration of the 1980`s Outland Technologies ROV design using horzontal acrylic tube camera pressure housing main difference are rear thrusters (angled and the protective arms /landing gear/ballast ) i like it ,back then it cost 1400 USD and of course had no autonomous abilities . "Dope on a Rope" in the parlance of the day in the industry .
You can guard your umbilical using hollow poly braid rope for clean buoyancy and chafe protection , i used a 8' piece of .250" alum rod as a needle to thread cable /wire through the poly 3/8" (alway make rope longer than cable because it will "Shrink" in length when filled with umbilical ) .
Here comes WAA with a ban on all commercial water drones.. ROFL
Btw just kidding looks great
@Justin,
I have reviewed the assembly instructions and it did not appear to have enough room up front for a GoPro camera. However, you might want to contact OpenROV to see if it is really possible.
I will say one thing, this is not a ROV that you just throw together in a weekend. It is a very complex assembly process. Maybe the newer version 2.5 will be simpler and less complex to assemble.
Regards,
TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
I looked at this when you were just started looking for Kickstarter backers.
It is great to see you were so successful and now have a business producing your really excellent ROV.
As for autonomous operation, I think that is a really worthwhile direction for you to be headed in.
Heading and depth are certainly of value, but you either need the absolute position information available from GPS or relative information that can be gleaned from your environment.
At a minimum I would think both bottom reporting and forward looking SONAR could be useful (works a lot better in the water than in air) and some sort of phased array sonar could give you a pretty good idea of what was in front of you.
For absolute position information from GPS you would either have to be tethered to some sort of easily entangled float or surface periodically.
Hey y'all,
David from OpenROV here. Thanks for sharing this here. We're coming out with a new depth/IMU board next week, which opens up all sorts of opportunities for autonomy and closed loop control. Your sweet spot!
Excited to hear what ideas you may have!
http://openrov.com/profiles/blogs/introduction-to-the-openrov-imu-d...