Blog
New tether
Jun 20, 2013
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Today we received a 1000′ gel filled, shielded Ethernet cable. After measuring out 250′ and crimping both sides we now have a new tether! Our last tether was starting to fail and was increasing our packet loss percentage.
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Pool Testing June 8, 2013
Jun 08, 2013
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Today we spent most of our time refining our vision algorithms. SubjuGator can consistently find pipes on the pool floor. The sub was also able to recognize the “pizza box”. Next step, install the pneumatic claw!
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Pool Testing June 1, 2013
Jun 05, 2013
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Today we worked on our controller and particle filter again. We used buoys to test our vision system. The video below shows the sub looking for a buoy shaped object that is also red. When the sub locates and bumps the buoy, it surfaces and proceeds toward its next objective: a shooting target from last year’s competition.
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Pool testing April 27, 2013
Apr 29, 2013
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Saturday testing went well. We continued to improve on the particle filter by attempting several of last year’s challenges. Our attempts of the buoy bumping and pipe to shooter were consistently successful.
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Particle-filter based vision
Apr 12, 2013
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This year, we’re trying to approach vision a different way. In the past, we’ve done image segmentation by using various thresholding algorithms and then classified the resulting contours based on size and shape. Our experimental software instead makes numerous guesses of the pose of the object being searched for, and then ranks them by how likely they are to be true, given the images received from the camera (Particle Filtering). The output quickly converges to the true 3D pose of th
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Move to ROS
Mar 30, 2013
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Over the last few months, we’ve been working on moving to ROS (Robot Operating System), an open-source framework for developing software for robots. It includes a message-passing layer that has replaced DDS (Data Distribution System) for us, utilities for managing all the software that the submarine runs, and numerous tools that let us work much more efficiently. In mid-February, the code was mature enough to let us hold position. Since then, we’re been capturing video and sonar data
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Middle School Outreach
Mar 08, 2013
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While in Panama City conducting testing in the Gulf of Mexico, Team SubjuGator visited two middle schools in the area. We met with the school’s STEM focused classes including one class that was working on their own underwater platform, a SeaPerch ROV. The visit was focused on robotics at the University of Florida and included a live demonstration of SubjuGator 7 in a very small pool.
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Testing in the Gulf of Mexico
Mar 08, 2013
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In support of writing a journal paper with the Nonlinear Controls and Robotics (NCR) group, we conducted controller tests in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Panama City, FL. This sea trial tested the robustness of the RISE controller which is implemented on SubjuGator 7. The RISE controller is a cutting edge robust nonlinear controller developed by the NCR group. The testing in the Gulf of Mexico was successful proving that the RISE controller and SubjuGator 7 were able to operate in an open
Continue Reading →Competition updates and live webcast information.
Jul 21, 2012
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We’ve been tweeting throughout the week on our twitter account: @subjugatoruf. For the most up to date information about our progress and results, that is the place to look. There will be a live web broadcast of finals on Sunday from 1-4pm PDT via Robosub.org.
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Machine Intelligence Laboratory | University of Florida