Raspberry Pi Computer To Cross The Atlantic Ocean In Autonomous Boat

Found this on Gizmodo

It’s codenamed FishPi, and I’m already hungry. It’s going to consist of a Raspberry Pi computer, strapped to a solar panel and encased in a model boat that will navigate perilous seas all by itself.
Greg Holloway is the crazy sea dog who came up with the FishPi, and explains his ideas on the Raspberry Pi blog:
Massive 25-foot waves, 100km/h winds, torrential rain, lightning, and the Kraken. None of those things should be put anywhere near a Raspberry Pi. On the Atlantic Ocean all of those are common place, and that is exactly where I’m sending my Raspberry Pi.
FishPi will be powered by a 130watt solar panel, so there will be no masts or sails. The propulsion will run from batteries, charged by the solar panel, and it will utilise a Kort Nozzle to gain maximum thrust from what will be limited power.
On-board will be a compass, GPS and camera so we always know where the little adventurer is on its journey. It’s only a proof of concept right now, but Holloway is confidant it can become a reality. Oh please let it become a reality. I want to watch a model boat cross an ocean all by itself from the comfort of my office chair.

I call tacocopter on this post.

That 20 inch boat hull ain't crossing no ocean, and it ain't holding no 130 watt solar anything.

You can come up with anything you want (tacocopter) but physics is a bitch.

1. The ocean is (nearly) a fractal surface - which increases in length as you increase the resolution: 20 inches is very high resolution.

2. The oceans have gyre, and significant currents; one cannot navigate the ocean over an extended period of time - one must be able to overcome the oceans inherent movement in order to arrive at a given destination.

3. no amount of arcane ducted fanoolery will overcome 1 & 2.

4. on the other hand; if this is a GPS-in-a-bottle and it doesn't matter where it ends up - knock yerself out.

In related news: Zombie Apocalypse to decimate humankind.

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Comments

Paul Mather June 28, 2012 at 12:41pm

From what I understand, land based solar panels require constant cleaning to keep them running as efficiently as possible. In this case, I should think salt might tend to build up on the panels significantly reducing their output.

I'm sure there are smaller and more efficient panels than this, but your typical 130W solar panel is 55" X 26" weighing 25 lbs.

http://www.amazon.com/Instapark%C2%AE-Black-Mono-crystalline-Solar-...

Then there's the issue of sinking a boat that small....which would be super easy. 50 tons of water crashing over a 3lb boat....it will float back up after the storm in 50 pieces.

Neat idea, no chance it will work.
Alex Roup June 28, 2012 at 7:35am

So what they're trying to do is basically this:

http://ausi.org/research/sauv/

http://ausi.org/research/sauv/
bGatti June 28, 2012 at 6:58am

I call tacocopter on this post.

That 20 inch boat hull ain't crossing no ocean, and it ain't holding no 130 watt solar anything.

You can come up with anything you want (tacocopter) but physics is a bitch.

1. The ocean is (nearly) a fractal surface - which increases in length as you increase the resolution: 20 inches is very high resolution.

2. The oceans have gyre, and significant currents; one cannot navigate the ocean over an extended period of time - one must be able to overcome the oceans inherent movement in order to arrive at a given destination.

3. no amount of arcane ducted fanoolery will overcome 1 & 2.

4. on the other hand; if this is a GPS-in-a-bottle and it doesn't matter where it ends up - knock yerself out.

In related news: Zombie Apocalypse to decimate humankind.
Christiaan van Vollenstee June 28, 2012 at 3:04am

This is absolutly awesome. I will follow this progress.
Craig Burden June 28, 2012 at 1:04am

I would put a GSM modem on it for an uplink, then you can know where it is, if you did it correctly you could have a full read out of its status. I would 100% have a way for it to either flip it's self over or make it able to run upside down too! There is absolutely no chance it will stay upright after having multiple tons of water dumper on it. Also, it can't mt partially submersible, make it a floating submarine, it WILL be fully submerged multiple times I guarantee it! And one more, Thanks to a recent "study" of the Raspberry Pi we now know it can get quite warm.

http://michaeldornisch.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/diy-raspberry-pi-heat...

Definitely have a passive cooling system, like have heat sinks on the CPU that extend out of the vessel into the water. The worlds largest water cooling system :)
James Printer June 27, 2012 at 4:19pm

What does it matter if it gets swamped, if it floats back after the storm has ended?
Rob_Lefebvre June 27, 2012 at 4:02pm

TC, yeah, that would be a good idea too. The boat must be very robust to make the journey. I don't even know if it's possible. Any storm and it will just get totally swamped, multiple times.
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Thomas J Coyle III June 27, 2012 at 4:00pm

I would say that a waterproof semi-submersible hull with very efficient electric propulsion and a deck supporting a large bank of waterproof solar cells would be the way to go. In Jackspeak it would be "a slow boat to China". LOL

Just a thought.

Regards,

TCIII
Andrew Radford June 27, 2012 at 2:30pm

Sounds really cool - would be awesome if there was some kind of satellite uplink to track progress.

I suspect with the small model however, it would probably be better to build them cheap and let loose a bunch of them. I can imagine them getting tangled up in old nets and floating islands of Japanese Tsunami bits.
Jack Crossfire June 27, 2012 at 2:22pm

Doesn't everything we have originally cross the ocean on boats from China?

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