Project Objectives
High Priority Objectives
The antenna should be within ±10° of the vertical orientation for 90% of its operating time in up to a Sea State 5.
Second Priority Objectives
The system should be able to last for a month in the ocean with up to a Sea State 7.
Other Constraints and Issues
The system will be operating in a corrosive sea environment for a week.
Power will be drawn from the antenna batteries so it should be reduced as much as possible
WOW Design Solution
The dream design would be to hold the antenna within ±10° of vertical 100% of the time with very minimal power consumption.
Risk Reduction Objectives
The risk reduction objectives of this quarter are to do analysis on three different possible designs and the hardware costs initially associated with them. Some of the major factors that will also be considered are power consumption, robustness, and probability of completion.
Intermediate Milestones
Initial Design Decision (End of this Quarter)
This will require a final decision based off of the analysis done throughout the rest of this quarter to the system we plan to build during the spring quarter.
Finalize the Components (First Week of Spring Quarter)
All of the hardware will be selected at this point and ordered so that they have time to arrive.
Finished First Prototype (Fifth Week of Spring Quarter)
The first working prototype will be operational at the end of week five. This will show the proof of the concept as well as give us insight into what works
Finished Final Prototype (Eighth Week of Spring Quarter)
All of the requirements should be met at the end of eighth week. The final design will be operational in lab tests done by manually lifting and timing the period of supposed waves.
Sea Testing (Ninth Week of Spring Quarter)
The system will be affixed to the buoy and taken out into the ocean for sea tests to make sure that the controlled laboratory experiments were really representative of the sea conditions.