My son is a manufactor of Subsea video recording equipment and lights for divers. We wanted to branch out. and the project was given to me to solve. I have a basic design of a 5" plexiglass tube for the watertight pressure vessel. I have a 500mm width on that, attached to the midpoint top/bottom will be a 500mm x 500mm acrylic plates, ending in the back with a 90mm width acrylic backplate. There will be 4 ducted thrusters, 60mm each, run by LGL out-runner motors, positioned fixed near each corner. This will be very similar to a quad-copter, except I need to provide forward/reverse thrust. This will provide for a very stable platform that will kind of fly thought the water. Main propulsion is provide by a 70mm Jet pump motor with a thrust vectoring outlet. This pump can run backwards, but at less efficiency for full 360 motion. The Jet pump is planned to provide a much faster vehicle to take on more rapid currents.
Problem, electronics. I need the following
- heads-up display on screen or goggles with camera view in real time. Including depth, heading, speed.
- flight control using a dual joystick RC style setup( I fly RC Heli’s, quads, Planes)
- Inertial navigation based on last known GPS
- Everything must be able to be controller via Ethernet to the ROV. Cameras are all IP, and lighting control is using Adriono mega256 setup. Only 1 cable is tethered, Cat6 Extended range Gigabyte with a Gig switch with POE on the ROV, and entire ROV powered via Power over Ethernet. There will be onboard Lithium cells with a delta charging system fed by the POE Power system is fed from the Batteries, and charged with access wattage from the POE that can extend the run time when using lower power settings.
Anyone think of a good setup for the flight control?? Hardware/firmware ?