• Automated routines for magnetometer calibration
• Automated routines for compass calibration
• A C4 continuous trajectory generator with coordinated Euclidean motion
• Numerous controller bug fixes and improvements including compensation for directional thruster performance
• Added abilities to command pitch and roll maneuvers as part of mission behaviors

Additional software improvements and redesigns include:

• Newly structured worker classes which now provide event status information to governing workers
• The ability to control and monitor workers using a commander interface
• The ability for workers to detect faults and restart themselves as needed
• New python-based scripting support for mission behaviors
• New GUI interfaces for sub status/visualization

In addition to numerous software changes, we have also moved our external actuator system to pneumatics. Our previous system relied on inexpensive (but hard to waterproof) solenoids, thus motivating the move to an entirely pneumatic system for control of the shooter, ball dropper, and grabber. 2012 will feature all new shooter and grabber mechanisms as well. SEACON has been kind enough to help us reduce some of our weight by providing new power cables and bulkheads for the interconnections with the battery pods.

We hope to continue our forward momentum into summer and continuously improve on the vehicle’s performance. We are on track to have over 200 hours of testing time in the pool this summer before the competition, a great improvement over the 20 hours of test time we had before the competition last summer.

We have uploaded several new videos to our Youtube account which demonstrate our new pneumatic system and our improved control performance. You can view these in the Media section of the website.

The SubjuGator project was also recently featured in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering’s Fall newsletter. The newsletter is also available online to read here.

We will have a Fall project update posted soon. Stay tuned.

We awoke early in order to get an early practice in before our preliminary round competition run at 9:30am. We left the hotel at 6:15am to reserve a spot on the practice side of the pond at about 8:20am. Our official weigh-in was at 46.5kg (102.5 lbs), well above the weight that we were told on day one, but about what we expected.

After a pretty good practice run, we had a disastrous preliminary run! On our first pass the sub went straight through the gate, but at a pace of less than half of our normal speed. We stopped the run and after some small modifications of code, we restarted our run. The sub did not move! After a few more tries we realized that we needed to cancel our runs and go back to our tent to analyze our problems in more depth. We found an error that should not have occurred, but somehow did. We had two mission planners running simultaneously! We lost our first chance to qualify for the finals, but with the knowledge that we will have another chance tomorrow (Saturday), we did not lose our confidence.

Our afternoon practice went very well. We went straight through the gate and hit the buoys and worked some on going over the hedges and towards the pinger. We will work into the night to get all the task solid that do not require actuation. We will attempt to run the entire course, including the actuation tasks, in the finals.

We had some great news to end today at Transdec. We won the static competition for the first time ever! The static competition includes our paper, our presentation to the judges, our submarine design, and our website. Congratulations to Team SubjuGator for this first static competition victory in the 14 years that we have been in the competition!
Based on our first place position, we had first choice on preliminary round competition times tomorrow; we chose 9:05am. We hope to get in a practice before our run tomorrow and at least one afterwards.

Wish us luck tomorrow and of course … Go Gators!

Before we left Gainesville, we estimated the weight of our sub at 95 lbs. We made a small bet amongst team members what the actual weight of the sub would be on the competition scale (guesses between 99 and 105 lbs, the disqualification weight is 110 lbs so you can see why we were nervous to know the true weight). Luckily the sub weighed in at only 90 lbs! A good sigh of relief and focus shifted to testing as many missions as possible during our 12 hours at the Transdec on the first day.

The first water test didn’t start the way we would have hoped as the ethernet tether decided to stop working (after it had been working for several weeks without problems). Confirming that the waterproofing of the cable splice was infact the problem, we decided to remove the sub and resolder/waterproof the ethernet tether. Our first water test proved to be a waste of good pool time, but the tether was quickly fixed and we got back into the queue to enter the pool again.

Our second water test was much more successful. We were able to drive autonomously (without tether) through the validation gate and then immediately travel to the pinger and surface within the octagon. After not being able to do this the previous two years at the competition, we were extremely happy with out first successful water test.

Our third water test was also successful as we were able to debug the pipe and buoy missions.

Our hope for tomorrow is to continue debugging as many vision mission behaviors as possible so that we can post a high point score for the semi-final rounds on Friday and Saturday.

Be sure to keep up with our daily progress on our twitter account: SubjuGatorUF and check back here for daily blog updates!

Go Gators!

Once the sub arrived, we began reassembling the components which we had to take off during shipping, e.g., the two vertical thrusters and one strafe thruster. Our new Pelican case was awesome so we didn’t have to take any of the sub apart during shipping. A nice change from last year.

We ran several errands to Target, Home Depot, Von’s and a local hardware store to get extra supplies that we forgot or planned to buy. Tonight we plan to recalibrate the sub (hard and soft iron calibrations since components on the sub have moved and the earth’s magnetic field is different in cali) and dynamic current calibration since thrusters were removed and added back. Tomorrow we will head to the Transdec to begin our first day of testing at the competition facility at 7am.

Check back here on our blog for more team updates or follow us on Twitter: SubjuGatorUF. The competition is open to the public on Saturday and Sunday for the semi-finals and finals. The finals on Sunday is also broadcast live online at http://www.robosub.org.

AUVSI Publication 2011