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•
Mecahnical Assembly •
GPS - Digital
Compass •
Proportional Servo •
Circuit Description •
Software •
Test Modes •
Crossing the Atlantic •
Sources
Mechanical
Assembly
The
structure of Roboat is simple, so that it can be easily
modified and adapted. It is made of a sheet of polystyrene
foam (4 cm thick) cut in the shape of a boat with
a thin sheet of plastic on top, on which all the devices
(i.e., battery, electronics, electric motor, propeller,
servo, and rudder) are mounted, as you can see in
Figure 1. While sailing,
all the devices are covered with a case that protects
them from exposure to water.
The
area chosen for the first Roboat test was lake Idroscalo,
which is close to Linate airport, 5 km east of Milan,
in northern Italy (see Figure
2). It is an artificial lake, once used as a "runway"
for seaplanes. These days the lake is primarily used
by rowboats and sailboats, which makes it rather quiet,
and thus safe for testing purposes.
The
test journey was about 1.5 km and it is described
by four waypoints and their corresponding coordinates.
The coordinates of the four waypoints are shown at
the bottom of Figure 2. They are expressed in:
•
degrees, minutes, and decimals (GPS NMEA format)
•
integer decimals (to normalize degrees, minutes,
and decimals into a single number)
•
integer hexadecimal numbers (to store the coordinates,
these are the numbers that appear in the software
listing)
