Robotic Sailboat Research Articles

Sailboat Test Arena (STAr): A Remotely Accessible Platform for Robotic Sailboat Research

Autonomous sailing robots have attracted much attention, but challenges arise due to the sailing tests require an environment with both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic fields and a sufficient number of sailing robots in readiness. A remotely accessible platform with the advantages of low cost, easy operation and high efficiency is the preferred method to solve this dilemma. Consistent with this goal is the design of Sailboat Test Arena (STAr), a remotely accessible platform for sailing robot design verification, autonomous algorithms validation and sailing control practices. All three parts require extensive testing in real water environments. Hereby, for testers around the world, STAr can be accessed without time difference. A variety of local and remote tests have been conducted in the STAr platform at various location around the world. The results show that STAr is a remotely accessible and effective tool in data collection and skill transfer. With continuous adoption and optimization, STAr will continue to serve as a tool to further promote low-cost, high-efficiency and diverse sailing research, and provide opportunities for more people to experience sailing.

Applying project‐based learning in artificial intelligence and marine discipline: An evaluation study on a robotic sailboat platform

AbstractArtificial intelligence is penetrating various fields. The demand for interdisciplinary talent is increasingly important, while interdisciplinary educational activities for high school students are lagging behind. Project‐based learning (PBL) in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic education activities supported by a robotic sailboat platform, the sailboat test arena (STAr), has been shown to popularise AI and robotic knowledge in young students. In the implementation of the programme, PBL was provided for students, and gamification pedagogy was applied to increase participants' learning motivation and engagement. The results show that the proposed STAr‐based programme is capable of delivering the desired knowledge and skills to students at high school levels. The assessment results suggest that most students achieve learning outcomes on average. Students showed more interest in AI and marine disciplines and were willing to participate in more such educational programs. The findings fill the research gap that few existing education platforms have facilitated the teaching and learning of AI and marine disciplines for high school students.

Sustainable Solutions for Sea Monitoring With Robotic Sailboats: N-Boat and F-Boat Twins.

Strategic management and production of internal energy in autonomous robots is becoming a research topic with growing importance, especially for platforms that target long-endurance missions, with long-range and duration. It is fundamental for autonomous vehicles to have energy self-generation capability to improve energy autonomy, especially in situations where refueling is not viable, such as an autonomous sailboat in ocean traversing. Hence, the development of energy estimation and management solutions is an important research topic to better optimize the use of available energy supply and generation potential. In this work, we revisit the challenges behind the project design and construction for two fully autonomous sailboats and propose a methodology based on the Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) in order to find the best way to manage the supplementary energy generated by solar panels. To verify the approach, we introduce a case study with our two developed sailboats that have planned payload with electric and electronics, and one of them is equipped with an electrical engine that may eventually help with the sailboat propulsion. Our current results show that it is possible to augment the system confidence level for the potential energy that can be harvested from the environment and the remaining energy stored, optimizing the energy usage of autonomous vehicles and improving their energy robustness.

Generic and Flexible Unmanned Sailboat for Innovative Education and World Robotic Sailing Championship.

Over the past two decades, scholars developed various unmanned sailboat platforms, but most of them have specialized designs and controllers. Whereas these robotic sailboats have good performance with open-source designs, it is actually hard for interested researchers or fans to follow and make their own sailboats with these open-source designs. Thus, in this paper, a generic and flexible unmanned sailboat platform with easy access to the hardware and software architectures is designed and tested. The commonly used 1-m class RC racing sailboat was employed to install Pixhawk V2.4.8, Arduino Mega 2,560, GPS module M8N, custom-designed wind direction sensor, and wireless 433 Mhz telegram. The widely used open-source hardware modules were selected to keep reliable and low-cost hardware setup to emphasize the generality and feasibility of the unmanned sailboat platform. In software architecture, the Pixhawk V2.4.8 provided reliable states’ feedback. The Arduino Mega 2,560 received estimated states from Pixhawk V2.4.8 and the wind vane sensor, and then controlled servo actuators of rudder and sail using simplified algorithms. Due to the complexity of introducing robot operating system and its packages, we designed a generic but real-time software architecture just using Arduino Mega 2,560. A suitable line-of-sight guidance strategy and PID-based controllers were used to let the autonomous sailboat sail at user-defined waypoints. Field tests validated the sailing performance in facing WRSC challenges. Results of fleet race, station keeping, and area scanning proved that our design and algorithms could control the 1-m class RC sailboat with acceptable accuracy. The proposed design and algorithms contributed to developing educational, low-cost, micro class autonomous sailboats with accessible, generic, and flexible hardware and software. Besides, our sailboat platform also facilitates readers to develop similar sailboats with more focus on their missions.

Towards a Real-Time Embedded System for Water Monitoring Installed in a Robotic Sailboat.

Problems related to quality (and quantity) of water in natural resources or in artificial reservoirs are frequently arising and are at the center of attention of authorities and governments around the world. Many times the monitoring is not performed in an efficient time frame and a precise manner, whereas the adoption of fast and punctual solutions would undoubtedly improve the water quality and consequently enhance the life of people. To minimize or diminish such kinds of problems, we propose an architecture for sensors installed in a robotic platform, an autonomous sail boat, able to acquire raw data relative to water quality, to process and make them available to people that might be interested in such information. The main contributions are the sensors architecture itself, which uses low cost sensors, with practical experimentation done with a prototype. Results show data collected for points in lakes and rivers in the northeast of Brazil. This embedded system is fixed in the sailboat robot with the intention to facilitate the study of water quality for long endurance missions. This robot can help monitoring water bodies in a more consistent manner. Nonetheless the system can also be used with fixed vases or buoys in strategic points.