Envirover.com

Envirover.com is byproduct of "Raider of The Pacific" project with more practical purpose and a broader vision.

Sail Propulsion Laboratory

So far the boat is pretty difficult to control:

• With single sail,  changing the sail sheet angle moves center of effort too much.
• To work efficiently, the sail must be at a certain angle to the apparent wind direction, with about 3° precision. Our wind vane measures wind direction with 22.5° precision, which is definitely not enough. measurements will be further affected by rocking of the boat.
• The hull is too thin, the displacement is relatively high, so the waterline is close to the mid-height of the hull. Heeling of the boat dramatically changes the underwater shape of the hull along and the helm balance.

Using wing sail with aileron instead of traditional sail should solve the first two problems. Center of effort of the wing is exactly at the mast (25% of the chord length). Aileron will keep the wing at a constant angle of attack to the apparent wind direction.
To get around the third problem we will temporarily use a hull with more predictable characteristics, such as catamaran (high initial stability, low absolute stability).
To research properties of the wing sail we are building a prototyping platform called “Sail Propulsion Laboratory” (SPL) that will:

• Allow changing relative location and sizes of all the elements (hull, sail, aileron, rudder, keel, etc.)

• Allow measuring and recording of the different forces, moments, and angles.

Saildrone

Here is an interesting reading about the subject

The Drone That Will Sail Itself Around the World

The Bird View of The Boat

Here is a video of the first boat test from Eric's "bird". 

SeaCharger

Apparently, the pool of crazy ideas is not infinite. Right now a solar powered autonomous boat SeaCharger is approaching Hawaii islands after making a 2000 miles passage from California. Great job guys! Good luck!

Three Boats and One "Bird"

This Saturday we tried the boat on Big Bear lake. In the test we used two kayaks, one small boat, and a quad-copter.  The boat did not do very good - it was way out of balance (huge weather helm) and steering without any feedback and any indication of the rudder position was too hard to keep the boat on course. But overall it was fun, entertaining, and useful. There are no problems we could not fix. The next series of tests will be focused on balancing the boat.

Vlad launching the boat for the first time

Eric controlling his "bird"

Beating

The Project Turned One year

One year after

Today Raider of The Pacific project turned one year. The hardware prototype is almost finished (so far no solar panels). Now it's time for the software part.

The software is also half there (see Guidance, Navigation and Control Library for Arduino).

The Moment

For the first time all the pieces were put together and tried in water. The testing showed that the keel needs to be made longer. The current righting moment is not enough to upright the boat from horizontal position. Adding more weight to the keel is also not an option, because the boat is already too heavy.

MicroGNC

Here is the very first release of MicroGNC - Guidance, Navigation and Control Library for Arduino.

https://github.com/pavelbobov/MicroGNC

Autopilot components for model boats, cars, planes, rockets, and everything else that moves, can be steered, and has a mission. This library is intended to be light, easy to use, and extensible. It brings big industry standards and software development practices to small-scale projects.  

RC Pilot

Autopilot hardware is almost done. So far it is RC controlled. But almost all the sensors (GPS, IMU, magnetometer, and anemometer) are in place. It's time to test it on water.

Put All the Pieces Together

After five month, the boat started to look almost like a boat. (So far the sail is made out of plastic film.) 

Wind and Waves

Wind Speed

Waves

It looks like the boat design should be optimized for running with 16 knots wind.

Halloween Rigging

This is how the boat was rigged for the first time. 

Testing The Hull

The hull with keel and rudder is ready! Testing of the basic hydrostatic and hydrodynamic properties of the boat was a success (it did not sink).

raider1.com

Now the address of this site is http://raider1.com

Let's Keep It Simple

The technical pages for the project were relocated to GitHub wiki pages.

And What About Heavy Weather?

For a boat this small, almost any weather is heavy... What can we do to increase its chances of survival in a storm?

Avoid Bad Weather
If we can establish two way communication with the boat, we could change its course to get around troubles.

Storm Survival Mode
In a bad weather the boat could get into a survival mode, when it steers not towards the destination but to increase its chances of survival. Using data from accelerometer, gyroscope, GPS, and wind wane, the boat could compute a micro-model of the environment and choose the best survival strategy for the conditions.

Slow and Steady Wins The Race 
The boat should be build neither for speed, nor for comfort. We don't need large sail area. The autopilot will not get sea sick. The boat must be well built though. Automatic reefing is not realistic here, but we could make the sail to de-power at strong wind by building in a wist.

Any other ideas?

Transpac 2015

This year we missed Transpac 2015 race from Long Beach, California to Honolulu, Hawaii. Let's join the race (unofficially) the next year.

Taxis1 - The Pilot's Big Brother

Though a bit crazy, Taxis1 could chase light sources, avoid obstacles, and stand on two wheels. After the light sensor was replaced by MQ-3 gas sensor, the robot became addicted to alcohol and was subsequently disassembled :(.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

That garbage patch is on our way! But we don't think this will be a problem because the size of the garbage particles is pretty small, so we will try to sail through it. We will have to think about getting  rid of sea weed and hopefully the first storm will release the boat if it gets trapped. We might also attach a knife to the keel so it will slice through garbage and seaweed.

Testing The Satellite Tracking Device

 This is a picture of about 50 balloons carrying a satellite tracking device somewhere into the mountains.Yes. We found the place where all the balloons end their way. We are going to use the same technology to track our boat.

The Rig

Here are the approximate dimensions of the rig. The rig will be made from 6061 aluminum bars, and fiber carbon tubes bamboo for spars (the mast and boom).

The Hull

For the hull we will use a 6 feet Liquid Shredder foam surfboard. The volume of the surf board is around 1.5 cubic feet, and deck area around 7.5 square feet.

2,000 Nautical Miles To Go

When we are finished with the sailboat it will travel from Santa Barbra to Hawaii. We will meet it at the destination and will send it on another adventure.

The surfboard needs a few modifications

We will turn a simple surfboard into a sailboat that will withstand storms and hurricanes. Our mission is to modify it so that it will travel with an autopilot robot maneuvering the sail following a GPS to its destination in Hawaii. It will be recording every step along the way. 

We will add:

• Mast
• Sail
• Keel
• Rudder
• Autopilot
• Batteries 
• Solar panels
• GPS homing device

Let's send this surfboard to Hawaii

This surfboard may be too small for us but maybe it is big enough for a small robot to travel big distances.