Safeguards against undesired behavior in tetherless AUTO mode over WiFi

Build DIY AUVs
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I have a rather unique problem – we have a bottom-mounted tetherless AUV that we program at the surface over WiFi with a delay on the AUTO mission, lower to the bottom, then after a time it begins its mission (then surfaces afterwards to re-connect).

Since we will lose GCS heartbeat once submerged, I turned that safeguard off. I congifured the AUV to surface if any of the other failsafes trigger (leak, pressure, temperature, etc).

I don’t think there is any way we can communicate with the ROV while it is underwater, right? That is, some way to shut off the mission if it starts doing it incorrectly, like a “big red button”.

Any suggestions are welcome, thanks!

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Hi @cda -
An optical or acoustic modem may be one way to interface with the vehicle underwater! You may need to develop a LUA script to provide this functionality to the autopilot…

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An acoustic modem is probably the only option, and they can be complex and expensive to buy, there are some open source versions out there, I’m working on integrating one of these to a project i’m working on.

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Thanks for your reply. The more I look into this, the more it is plain that ACOMMS is the best way to do this. Expensive though!

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Thanks for your reply! I have used ahoi before – it’s a great project, and I am a big fan of the work they are doing. I think as far as low-cost ACOMMS modems go, pairing this board stack with a suitable “low-cost” transducer is the best cheap option. Still not really cheap, but probably the best we can get.

I’ll look out for any updates to your project!

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Hello, I am also preparing to replicate this open-source project. May I ask how your progress is going? Are you using the recommended AS-1 transducer or another type? Thank you.