Finally was able to get one of the bots out onto the water. For this test, I chose an area of San Francisco Bay that is subject to strong currents during the tide changes. As the tide was going out, the current was about 3 knots. The bot did fine. There were plenty of settings to tweak and a few adjustments of the Pixhawk PID had things working smoothly.
Some takeaways from the test.
Turn radius: Once I threw the switch into autonomous mode, I notice some squirrelly behavior from the bot. Checking my list I realized that I still needed to verify the turn radius. I originally estimated the turn radius to be about 3 meters. I was waaaaay off. The radius turned out to be around 7.5 meters. Once I updated that little nugget, the bot handled the waypoints with ease.
Weight: Getting weight distribution right can be a pain. I had to stop the bot on the water a few times to adjust battery/ballast positioning so the bot would track better.
Overall a successful mission and One step closer to launch!
More updates soon.
You can check out the twitter feed for updates between blog posts!
Comments
Some videos please!! :)
Would be interesting if a hobby grade ROV got images of the trans bay tube. Still well beyond today's technology, but not too unrealistic for a kickstarter project.
Nice job! Looking forward to the launch!
Nice work PacificBots!
I went to the Navy's Nuclear Power School at Mare Island and the area you are testing in looks like that section of the East Bay near Mare Island?
Regards,
TCIII AVD