Introducing Our Team's AUV for the 2017 RoboSub

Build AUVSI RoboSub
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Hey Blue Robotics Community,

Thought I would share with you guys the University of Colorado Boulder RoboSub Team’s 2017 Vehicle, working name Themistocles.

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This vehicle was designed for the AUVSI foundation RoboSub Competition. This requires it to complete a series of visual and acoustic navigation tasks.

Quick rundown of the Vehicle:

-Propulsion

  • 6x Blue Robotics T100
  • 2x VideoRay Pro4 Thrusters

-Sensors

  • Occam Robotics Omni60, 360 panoramic camera
  • PointGrey Blackfly with Theia S120 lense
  • Global Shutter USB3.0 C Cam with Theia lense
  • 9x Aquarian Audio Scientific AS-1
  • X-iO NGIMU
  • Sparton AHRS-8
  • PNI TRAX
  • GeoTech Surveying Pressure Transducer
  • Nortek DVL 1Mhz

-Actuators

  • 8 valve pneumatic manifold
  • 4 linear pneumatic actuators
  • Ninja Paintball Tank Supply

-Computation & Electronics

  • Gigabyte Brix with Intel i5
  • Custom backplane and power distribution
  • Custom control board with dedicated microcontroller
  • 2x 5AH 14.8v lipo batteries
  • Hot Swappable batteries and bench power
  • Isolated FPGA signal processing system
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We are just getting ready to do initial sealing tests, waiting on a couple components.

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I will be coming back with periodic updates, on the progress in assembling and testing the vehicle. Allong with more details as the vehicle comes together. Please feel free to ask questions, make comments or provide feedback.

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Looks like a very professional design to me. Looking forward to seeing it at TRANSDEC this year!

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Holy cow, that’s quite the outfit. Looking forward to seeing this develop.

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Thanks for the compliments.

Apologies, for the brief introduction it has been a long few weeks. Finally got the main enclosure together. Lots and lots of locktite Marine epoxy. We started using icing bags as applicators, worked surprisingly well.

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The epoxy can be mixed directly in the bag, and then applied like frosting. We found this very useful in getting our epoxy into groves.
Our team has a policy against acrylic being used in non permanent sealing surfaces, so unlike the blue robotics enclosures which use a bore seal between the acrylic tube and the aluminum end cap sealing collar, we epoxy our end caps and sealing collars to the acrylic tube, forming permanent seals. This eliminates the possibility or scratches or deformation in the acrylic creating a leak. lot harder to scratch or bend aluminum.

Finally got the main hull all glued and bolted together earlier this week.

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The first seal test did not go quite as well as hoped, Our midcap sprung a minor leak.

The vehicle a little wet inside after the first water test.

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So we threw the kitchen sink of permanent sealing at it, Epoxy, Silicone Calk, superglue. which seems to have done the trick.