Pictured above is the IHMC Dynamic Water Bridge, an autonomous bi-directional watercraft prototype sponsored by IHMC. The craft uses a 9DOF Sparkfun Razor IMU and a GPS module to establish an Inertial Navigation System (INS) that follows a straight path between the craft's current position and the coordinates of its destination. The IMU data was filtered and converted to a North-East-Down (NED) coordinate system using an open-source Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) algorithm.

Three sonar sensors are mounted on both the 'front' and 'back' of the craft, allowing the triangulation of any perceived obstacles. When an obstacle is detected, the obstacle avoidance algorithm overrides the INS until the perceived obstacle is out of sight.

Because of the relatively significant error of a GPS reading, the GPS is no longer reliable once the craft is sufficiently close to its destination: for example, in the event of docking. Once the boat is near its destination coordinates, a Smart Dock uses sonar to triangulate the position of the craft relative to the dock's entrance. If the orientation of the dock/sonar sensors is known, this can be compared to the orientation and triangulated relative position of the craft to determine which direction the craft should go to enter the dock safely. Commands are then sent from the dock's Arduino to the craft's Raspberry Pi using radio transceivers.

Faculty Mentor: Dr. Brad Regez
Funded by UWF Office of Undergraduate Research