Navigation Boat

Control panel for the mapping (geological survey) boat

Year: 2005.

Boat location: Russia, Astrakhan city.

The control system of the boat consisted of two parts: PC with GPS unit and special mapping software and steering control unit (developed by our team). The steering control unit is a box with the steering wheel, 5 inch display controlled by single board computer OctagonPC, 5 buttons, and I/O control unit by Fastwel (russian manufacturer of PLC). OctagonPC was programmed by my colleague. My part was the code for Fastwel I/O unit. The code was developed in Borland C and provided the key functions as follows:

- communication with Octagon PC (getting course and bearing, sending feedback);

- polling encoder connected to the steering wheel;

- polling the state of the buttons on the panel;

- output of the control signal to actuators of the fins;

- support of 4 different control modes;

- saving data to NVRAM;

Modes:

Manual1. The rotation of the fins defined by position of the steering wheel. The fins will stay still until the steering wheel turned back. The boat makes circles.

Manual 2. The steering wheel defines the course of the boat. The fins return to 0 when the boat makes turn corresponding to the position of the steering wheel. More like a steering wheel of the car.

Automatic «Course». The course is set on control PC (MoD) and then via OctagonPC transferred to Fastwel RTU.

Automatic «Bearing». The operator draws the path of the boat on control PC using mapping software. Data is send down to Fastwel RTU and the boat follows the path.

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