Peruagus - a transatlantic autonomous surface vessel for the Microtransat Challenge

Abstract

The Microtransat Challenge is a (friendly) transatlantic, unmanned boat race, aimed to stimulate the development of autonomous boats. Since the first transatlantic Microtransat race in 2010 there have been over 20 entries and no successful crossings in all classes (sailing,non sailing), divisions (autonomous, unmanned) and routes (East to West, West to East). This paper presents the design and development of Peruagus, the University of Southampton 2018 Microtransat transatlantic autonomous surface vessel entry. Peruagus, meaning Globetrotter in Latin, was developed as part of a final year group design project at the University of Southampton. The design of the vessel (a mono-hull, self righting, solar powered vessel) including the system architecture, hull design, propulsion, steering, power and control systems and experimental results from a series of self propulsion tests, sea-keeping tests and autonomous operations are presented. The results demonstrate that the vessel is able to self right, propel itself with low power and operate autonomously over a range of conditions. In addition, performance predictions are presented and based on a fault tree analysis the vessel is currently predicted to have a 60% chance of success. The vessel is planned to be launched in the summer of 2018.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Nicholas Townsend: orcid.org/0000-0001-6996-3532

ORCID for James Blake: orcid.org/0000-0001-5291-8233

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