The End of Testing Season

Fall transitioned very suddenly into winter these past couple of weeks in New Brunswick, effectively halting AMOS's field testing. The final distance total was 180 km, just 20 km shy of the 200 km goal. The upcoming winter months will be spent transitioning AMOS from a pretty good prototype into a viable product that can be consistently manufactured and used by actual customers. One aspect of this involves converting the existing through-hole prototyping board circuits into more professional looking printed circuit boards. RPC Science and Engineering (rpc.ca) is helping out with a circuit board design and layout for the wireless telemetry and diagnostics system that AMOS uses. Some work was also done in-house to get a printed circuit board completed for the 4-channel A to D module, with an I2C interface for easy connection to the Raspberry Pi, and resistors and settable jumper pins for setting gain on individual channels.

Unfortunately I missed an obvious alignment error in the silkscreen printing for the jumper settings table, but otherwise the board looks pretty good. I'll need to populate it with the necessary components and try it out to confirm that it works.

More work was completed on the anchor testing apparatus as well. A small crane assembly and a framework for holding the motors, Arduino board, and motor drivers was 3-D printed and put together for some simple anchor testing:

This time a 16-pound fishing line was used to hold the wrench, and it seemed to work pretty well. It  occupied less space than the previously used string, and didn't get frayed or damaged from use. Some micro-switches have been ordered and will be positioned as "stopping points" for the swivel and lifting motions. I'm wondering about a strain sensor or something for the crane arm to detect when there is slack on the line, as it isn't really a good idea to keep unwinding the fishing line once the anchor reaches the bottom and the line goes slack. Or maybe just let the anchor free-fall without motor intervention.

In Nature Robotics Ltd. expanded its web presence last night, as it now has an official Facebook page. Check it out: https://www.facebook.com/InNatureRobotics/ and give it a "Like" to get a weekly update on what is going on with AMOS and other development work.

Some work has also been done on a business plan for In Nature Robotics Ltd., although this is proving to be a lengthy process. I'm currently evaluating the competition in the Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) space for inland waterways and there are some pretty good products out there, but I think AMOS can find a niche with its light weight, airboat design with low draught allowing it to pass easily through shallow water with vegetation, and ability to operate autonomously for extended periods of time without any human intervention. So far there doesn't seem to be anything out there that can do all 3 of those things, but the competition does seem to be growing and improving quickly!