If you search the PICList archives for "autonomous boat" (AFAIR) you should find a lurker who was building an, natch, autonomous boat. Name escapes me but I can probably find it. May be in Italy brain suggests. For REAL value and triple extra points you may try my idea, which I want to do but won't manage this lifetime. This well predates the recent America's Cup nonsense :-) They stole my sail idea - not me theirs. Small - a metre or so probably. Cat or Tri maran. Wing sail. Steerable. Utterly Bullet proof construction. !!!!!!!!!! Wing may need to be made to lie down for Hurricanes. Self righting !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Unsinkable. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Non existeum construction as required). SO - this should be able to be easily headed on a consistent course under easy automatic Solar panel (all top surface) Minimal power needed - mainly sail steering and rudder. Add GPS. Camera. Add Sat Phone for calling home - probably Disprosium (nee Irridium) who will give yuou one free and air time if you ever get this far. AND: Sail it around the world autonomously. Good enough project? Could be done for relatively modest cost. You'd have no trouble getting a keen team involved. Beating off the deadwood would be harder. You could sell these to people, but that may make you unpopular with the men in black helicopters. R On 16 April 2010 20:37, solarwind wrote: > I've always wanted to design a long range, low maintenance, autonomous > vehicle that could be controlled/communicated with remotely. It would > have no specific purpose, rather just to show that it was done because > it could be done. > > My first idea was an air unit, that would be solar powered but > something like that would be very complicated and expensive to design. > Also, I'd imagine that long lasting electric motors in the RC hobby > field are hard to come by (I'm thinking of something that would last > months to years spinning continuously). Also, even the slightest > problem in the air would be very difficult to fix and the consequences > would be catastrophic. > > My next idea was a land rover design. The design would be far simpler > than that of any air unit. But what could be explored? You can't > really GO anywhere, just roam flat land. > > But what about a water rover unit that could glide near the surface of > the water as well as dive down deep? > > The unit would be powered entirely by solar energy. It would have a > large surface area to mass ratio. It would need to be sturdy and > tough, but also light and aerodynamic(?) enough to use its energy as > efficiently as possible. It would have all the fun stuff on board: > camera, spotlight, GPS unit and various sensors to detect depth and so > on. It would communicate long range to a base station on land via > whatever radio frequency best penetrates water (and is in the HAM > band). > > The unit would surface to recharge its batteries during bright > sunlight. I'd imagine a few high efficiency solar panels would > suffice. During this time, it could also collect pressure, temperature > and other data from its onboard sensors, record the data and/or send > it to the base station. Every few months or so the unit would come > back to its origin for battery replacement and scheduled maintenance. > Other than that, it's just an idea. > > This was just rattling in my mind today, though I don't know why. The > unit would be preferably small, no more than a metre in any dimension. > However, something tells me that water travel is very inefficient and > would require a lot of power - so the device would be rather large, to > accommodate all the solar panels. > > I was thinking that it could be deployed in Lake Ontario. Maybe take > pictures of some of the fish. > > I don't know. What do you guys think? > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > -- http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist