Start
•
Mecahnical Assembly •
GPS - Digital
Compass •
Proportional Servo •
Circuit Description •
Software •
Test Modes •
Crossing the Atlantic •
Sources
Software
The
main actions handled by the Roboat’s software
are:
•
start the propeller and the GPS
•
acquire data from the GPS and the digital compass
•
compute present course and position
•
compute any course corrections needed to reach the
next waypoint
•
apply any course corrections to the rudder
•
stop the propeller, GPS, and the controller when
the last waypoint is reached
The
main devices controlled by the software are the GPS
and aerial GA27, the digital compass sensor analog,
proportional servo, and the 12-V electric motor. Table 1 shows the pin assignments of the ’GP20CFB.
The
flow chart in Figure 6 describes
the program that runs in the ’GP20CFB and controls
the devices. After initialization, the program is
basically a continuous loop that is periodically interrupted
by four routines that control data acquisition from
the GPS (IntSCI), data acquisition from the digital
compass (IntADC), PWM pulse to the proportional servo
(IntTIM1), and the status of SW3 (IntKBD).
