Open ES-Alexander opened 2 years ago
I'm building a towed underwater drone. Controlled by flaps, they are designed to change the wing profile, more than being control surfaces. the drone has two individually controlled flaps on the front wings. and a double flap on the back wing.
Dear software engineers. I’m a mechanical engineer working at Aarhus University, on the development of an underwater towed glider drone. As the drone more resembles a plane than a ROV, but still is an underwater vehicle. We need a features that supports control surfaces as mentioned in this post: https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/issues/21568
For the drone we are using Blue Robotics; Navigator Flight Controller Ping sonar Lumen Subsea Light Bar30 High-Resolution 300m Depth/Pressure Sensor
Right now, I’m working on implementing a leak sensor on the plane firmware, and in this work I have noticed that the Ardusub firmware, has a lot of nice features, related to underwater vehicles.
I would like build the firmware for a sub, but with plane control.
Is it possible that I could get a run thru on how the Ardusub firmware is build, from the GitHub repository? As a live session? My main questions are; What file(s) are defining what files/functions to include in the build? How is the program/function hierarchy/relations in Ardusub?
As for reference the drone has a footprint of 1.2 x 1.2 m. with an individually controled flap on the two front wings. and a double flap on the tail wing.
Hello, I am also planning to build a glider using a Navigator Flight Controller. Does Blue Robotics have a plan to officially support Glider control system on ArduSub project?
Does Blue Robotics have a plan to officially support Glider control system on ArduSub project?
Nothing specific at this stage. I'm personally interested in ArduSub supporting additional sub-marine control mechanisms, but I don't expect there'll be an official company push for that kind of development unless it's done in tandem with the development of a product that would gain value through that support, and presumably with evidence of sufficient market desire for it.
Our current vehicle architecture development efforts are focused around making it simpler to create custom ArduSub vehicle frames, and ideally be able to specify them dynamically (without needing to build a custom firmware for frame modifications). If implemented well that work could provide a basis for further developments like thrust vectoring, but persistent state changes (like from dynamic buoyancy and/or control surfaces) will require a more involved modification of the vehicle's motion control algorithms (so are somewhat independent, and will likely take longer).
That being said:
Feature request
Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe. ArduSub currently only supports static vectored-thruster control, but the underwater environment is well-suited to other motion control regimes like dynamic thrust vectoring, flow-based gliding and flapping, and active buoyancy.
While ROVs most commonly use only fixed thrusters (like a copter, but with vectorised thruster orientations for more intuitive motion), "sub"marines and gliders will often have a single thruster or no thrusters, with steering accomplished by either rotation of that thruster (thrust-vectoring) or by control surfaces that skew velocity by changing the vehicle's flow (lift and drag) characteristics in a given movement direction. Vertical motion is sometimes accomplished by inflating and deflating an external bladder, or by expanding or decreasing the volume of an enclosure with a piston. None of those options are currently available, which significantly limits the scope of underwater vehicle designs that can be meaningfully controlled with ArduSub.
Describe the solution you'd like
Describe alternatives you've considered
Platform [ ] All [ ] AntennaTracker [ ] Copter [ ] Plane [ ] Rover [x] Submarine
Additional context