Hello everyone,
My name is Rusty and I am from BlueRobotics. We've spent the last nine months developing an underwater thruster for marine robotics that is high-performing, resistant to saltwater, and affordable for hobbyists. We've used it to propel a few vehicles with the APM2.6 already.
SolarSurfer ASV. End goal: send it autonomously from LA to Hawaii, guided by an APM2.6.
http://hackaday.io/project/1677-SolarSurfer
http://www.bluerobotics.com/solarsurfer-ocean-test-2/
https://github.com/bluerobotics/SolarSurferCore
ROV: Six thrusters for six-degree of freedom control. Multicopter-like feedback lets it auto-stabilize and hold any orientation. It uses an APM2.6 for control and a Raspberry Pi to stream live video over an Ethernet tether.
Today we're announcing our Kickstarter campaign! You can preview the campaign here and let us know what you think.
The Kickstarter Campaign will go live on August 12th, 2014 at 8:30am Pacific.
We've been longtime readers of DIYDrones and we've built multicopters, airplanes, and lots of other robotic vehicles. We hope that the DIY robotics revolution can extend into the ocean!
I hope you will check it out and back us next week! Please let us know if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions. You can do so here, on the feedback form at the top of the preview page, or email us at info@bluerobotics.com.
You can also visit us at www.bluerobotics.com and join the new Arduboat User Group on DIYD.
Thanks!
- Rusty, Joe, and Josh from BlueRobotics
Comments
For those who are following this thread, the T100 Thruster Kickstarter is live right now!
You can back it here.
Thanks!
- Rusty, Joe, and Josh at BlueRobotics
I`m in.
I use a battery drill motor,stainless shaft and plastic prop to power my pontoon style camera platform.
I`m forever swapping out shaft bearings,I would love a maintenance free option.
Hi ..great idea ..that can be very good to make a diy kontiki fishing torpedo...
David, we'll add a kit to the rewards. We are using a battery pack. PoE doesn't provide enough power for six thrusters. You could potentially use PoE to constantly recharge the battery pack for longer dives but we haven't looked into that much.
-Rusty
Absolutely interested in the kit, though not necessarily for the cost savings - more for the fun of assembly and the opportunity to do some pre-mechanical-integration validation. How are you doing power - battery pack or PoE through the tether?
Hey David, that sounds like any awesome living arrangement. I'm jealous.
Right now, the BlueROV is using an APM2.6, which provides the ESC/thruster outputs and IMU. A Raspberry Pi relays control messages to the APM and streams live video back to the surface through Ethernet. At the surface, an XBox controller provides joystick inputs to a Python script that sends commands to the Raspberry Pi. I like this arrangement because it's simple and lots of people already have that hardware sitting around.
It'd be great to have you on the dev team!
By the way, we're thinking of adding a "BlueROV Kit" level to the Kickstarter if you are interested. It'll be a little cheaper.
Thanks!
-Rusty
This looks awesome, and is likely just in time for me - I've been considering pulling the trigger on an OpenROV, but would love to contribute to BlueROV. As I'm in the process of moving into a liveaboard boat in the San Francisco Bay, the ability to use my own ROV to do bottom inspections, etc., is very appealing (and the arrangement will give me plenty of opportunity to do development and testing). Do you have any more information on the hardware stack that you're planning on using on BlueROV?
Good luck - I'll be following your progress closely!
Hey everyone,
Thanks for the encouraging comments. We're looking forward to being part of the community here.
-Rusty
Yeah, super cool! Feel free to ping the dev team (drones-discuss@googlegroups.com) if you need advice on the software side. We're cheering for you!
Looks awesome already! Always wanted to make a sub hehe
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