MSU's Robosub, "Blue November V2"

Last updated April 13, 2015.

Mission Overview

The MSU AUVSI Robosub is an autonomous underwater robot sponsored by the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). The planning, development, and building process spans an entire year and comprises a capstone design project for the electrical and mechanical engineering students on the team. As a team, the goal of the project is to foster learning by employing multi-disciplinary engineering strategies to produce an autonomous machine. The electrical engineering aspect involves assembling and wiring a computer, power supply, microcontrollers, sensing, motors, etc., and developing control algoithms. The Robosub requires command software to be coded by MSU computer science students along with the electrical engineers. The mechanical engineers are concentrating on designing a water tight capsule with several constraints including ease of access, buoyancy, dissipation of heat, pneumatic systems, and all physical modeling of our design. This multidisciplinary team is constanly collaborating on this complicated system. The Robosub will be equipped with hardware and software to carry out tasks for the 2015 AUVSI completion in San Diego, CA.

The scope of this semester's objectives mainly include redesign of the Robosub to be robust and expandable, with basic functionality of sensors, line-following and buoy-finding missions, and programming methods commonly taught to Computer Science majors.

The new design has full capability for following students to add componenents such as hydrophone arrays, more pneumatics, or anything else. Currently, without additional weights added, the sub is over-buoyant, meaning added components will add to a more natural balance in the water and the weights can be taken off.

Previously in this project, a new team was brought in for design every year. Starting this semester, new teams with specific tasks will be brought on each semester. This will enable a constant working knowledge of the robot rather than each team spending their first semester trying to figure it out.