SAUC-E (Student Autonomous Underwater Challenge - Europe) is a European underwater robotics competition sponsored by the UK ministry of defense (Research Acquisition Organization and DSTL). The next generation of engineers and scientists are asked to design and build an AUV and then perform realistic missions in the underwater environment.
The competition encourages young engineers and scientists to think about underwater technology and its future possibilities, as well as fostering ties between the students and the organizations involved in AUV technologies.
Six university teams competed at SAUC-E 2008, hosted by the DGA (Délégation Générale pour l'Armement, France) and held at the IFREMER (Institut français de recherche pour l'exploitation de la mer) in Brest, France on July 2008. Our team representing the ENSIETA finished second place after 3 days of competition.
For this competition, the submarine was equipped as follows:
Regarding its physical description we have that:
Its body is made of aluminum (to avoid magnetic disturbances while using the inertial measurement unit) and it’s about 70cm long.
It was equipped with sonar that we used for localization purposes in a pool (by analyzing the echoes and by having prior knowledge of the pool’s dimensions).
A pressure sensor was installed to determine the depth of the AUV.
A WiFi antenna was attached to the submarine in order to manually operate it using a wireless communication link (up to 1m deep).
Two High Definition cameras allow having visual images from the bottom and the front of the submarine.
Three thrusters were used, one vertical to adjust the AUV’s depth, and two horizontal to control its speed and direction.
Regarding the electronics we had the following components inside the AUV (this is a non extensive list):
An on board PC104, with a 1.44Ghz processor running Linux.
A LabJack UE9 in order to control the thrusters through PWM signals.
A WiFi router to establish the communication link between the on board and the outdoor (laptop) computer.
An inertial measurement unit for navigation purposes.
Three motor controllers to deliver the necessary power to each thruster.
A diagram of the architecture previously described is provided below:
Some videos that we took using our homemade submarine cameras (source: stepahne bazeille):
Rouge (our AUV's name for the 2008 competition) taking a swim at the IFREMER's pool:
Rouge performing its first mission "The validation gate" at the IFREMER's pool (underwater view):
Same as before but taken at the surface:
Few months before the competition at the GESMA's (Groupes d'études sous-marines de l'Atlantique) pool
Some data gathering for the localization tests. The AUV is following a known trajectory to perform some offline localization tests:
