A behind the scenes of our progress!
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Fresh off our finals and with post-RobotX nostalgia setting in, we took this chance to power on the BBAUV 4.1 once again, which was last powered on for SAUVC almost 8 months ago. We used this time to reassess the vehicle’s current status and replace any broken or damaged components. We also took this small downtime to continue porting our software stack from ROS1 -> ROS2.
The electrical subteam is currently in the midst of a major architecture revamp from the ATMega microcontrollers to STM32 microcontrollers. We also took this chance to further expand the range of features we support, and improe the robustness of our backplane design.
We encountered a few issues during the first few weeks of testing. Our controls and localization porting from ROS1 were not perfect and we had to take some time to iron out those issues. However, we managed to get everything up and running and with that, we have successfully cleared the pre-qualification gate!
After the semester’s final exams, we headed straight back to the pool continue our testing. The main portion of the testing was now more towards full integration. We tested our various mission behaviors to ensure that not only was it reliable, but also their ability to be easily executed without causing other issues.
We have finally developed our torpedo system. Before attempting to use it underwater, we have first tested it on land. Here is a video of our attempts!
The electrical stack is shaping up nicely as the team works round the clock to bring up each individual board and conduct integration tests.
As we move closer to completing each new individual component, we have began our integration testing to ensure that all the components are working together to deliver our vehicle’s full capabilties. Here is our electrical lead overseeing our integration
After weeks and months of hard work, we are finally transitioning over from BBAUV 4.1 to BBAUV 4.5. You can see Yijian, our development lead, overseeing the final integration tests before we fully transplant components over.
Look forward to seeing everyone at Irvine, California for RoboSub 2025!
