Unmanned Surface Vessel

Developments in climate science and geopolitical conflict have increased the demand for coastal reconnaissance. Modern applications call for robotics to improve safety and efficiency. We present a radar-navigating unmanned surface vessel (USV) as a platform to perform intelligence gathering missions. 

Signal jamming and sparse cellular coverage in remote areas mandate robotic self-reliance. Equipped with a mesh radio, the USV can be teleoperated from a control station. With more than 5 hours of battery life, it can map surroundings with radar and stream live video of operations, while navigating at 10 mph.

USV control software utilizes a system of nodes defined under Robot Operating System (ROS) to control peripheral, process data, and communicate with the control station. ROS nodes communicate by publishing and subscribing to user defined topics. Nodes written with Python and C++.

Radar point clouds are collected from different positions and composed to form larger maps