Australia and New Zealand Entry Page - Sailing Auto Pilot - Competition - Ready For Tomorrow 2022

I’ll have to admit – I’ve never sailed before, let alone been on the water much. But from my point of view, I do know a bit about electronics, so I’ll try and elaborate on some of the improvements I think may be useful.

• Perhaps consider using FPGAs rather than microcontrollers for the PID loops as FPGAs can process inputs quickly and in parallel, this may mean better loop performance without adding complexity of having multiple microcontrollers or trying to make one microcontroller work several PID loops. Perhaps choose a more powerful microcontroller if going that route – e.g. the RP2040.
• Use an eInk display – this would save energy as it does not require continuous refreshing and be sunlight readable. Perhaps you could also consider modifying the display to incorporate a backlight for use when it is dark, or use a front-light.
• For communication with a smartphone, I would recommend the use of Bluetooth Low-Energy for streaming the occasional status update. This keeps power low, and with newer standards, a long-range mode is also available to overcome some of the propagation disadvantages of 2.4GHz. This could be added on, say with the use of an ESP-32-based microcontroller.
• The use of 2.4GHz probably is not ideal, however, if long-range or penetration of solid material is necessary. As a result, I think it would be better if 900MHz LoRa-based communications is considered. This could be simply added by retrofitting an RFM9x module and would ensure robust, long-range (often several hundred meters to several kilometers) communication with a data-rate tradeoff.
• If LoRa is used, then perhaps the smartphone is less important and a dedicated eInk-based LoRa display is probably worth building. This could be kept on your body or in several convenient places across the yacht, and all could receive the same broadcast data thus being efficiently updated. Perhaps you could also incorporate a buzzer to indicate critical alarms, so the system could wirelessly page you anywhere on the ship!
• If the speed of data communications to your actuators and sensors are not that critical, then having them run by separate controllers on a radio link (e.g. LoRa, or 2.4GHz BLE/ESPNow) may be a convenience as this would save on wire and allow for quick replacement in case something goes wrong. Some sensors could feasibly be solar powered or battery powered with lower-energy radios and judicious use of sleep routines.
• Consider the use of high-precision 24-bit ADCs for digitising analog signals, in case you use any strain sensors or precision potentiometers. This would provide much greater accuracy compared to the onboard analog inputs from an Arduino.
• It would probably be nice to have a microSD card to serve as a “voyage data recorder” of sorts, as well as a set of environmental sensors (temperature, barometric pressure) to detect potential weather changes. A full-sky camera with an AI-based algorithm may also provide some information on cloud cover as well.

Those are just some of the things that come to mind …

- Gough

I’ll have to admit – I’ve never sailed before, let alone been on the water much. But from my point of view, I do know a bit about electronics, so I’ll try and elaborate on some of the improvements I think may be useful.

• Perhaps consider using FPGAs rather than microcontrollers for the PID loops as FPGAs can process inputs quickly and in parallel, this may mean better loop performance without adding complexity of having multiple microcontrollers or trying to make one microcontroller work several PID loops. Perhaps choose a more powerful microcontroller if going that route – e.g. the RP2040.
• Use an eInk display – this would save energy as it does not require continuous refreshing and be sunlight readable. Perhaps you could also consider modifying the display to incorporate a backlight for use when it is dark, or use a front-light.
• For communication with a smartphone, I would recommend the use of Bluetooth Low-Energy for streaming the occasional status update. This keeps power low, and with newer standards, a long-range mode is also available to overcome some of the propagation disadvantages of 2.4GHz. This could be added on, say with the use of an ESP-32-based microcontroller.
• The use of 2.4GHz probably is not ideal, however, if long-range or penetration of solid material is necessary. As a result, I think it would be better if 900MHz LoRa-based communications is considered. This could be simply added by retrofitting an RFM9x module and would ensure robust, long-range (often several hundred meters to several kilometers) communication with a data-rate tradeoff.
• If LoRa is used, then perhaps the smartphone is less important and a dedicated eInk-based LoRa display is probably worth building. This could be kept on your body or in several convenient places across the yacht, and all could receive the same broadcast data thus being efficiently updated. Perhaps you could also incorporate a buzzer to indicate critical alarms, so the system could wirelessly page you anywhere on the ship!
• If the speed of data communications to your actuators and sensors are not that critical, then having them run by separate controllers on a radio link (e.g. LoRa, or 2.4GHz BLE/ESPNow) may be a convenience as this would save on wire and allow for quick replacement in case something goes wrong. Some sensors could feasibly be solar powered or battery powered with lower-energy radios and judicious use of sleep routines.
• Consider the use of high-precision 24-bit ADCs for digitising analog signals, in case you use any strain sensors or precision potentiometers. This would provide much greater accuracy compared to the onboard analog inputs from an Arduino.
• It would probably be nice to have a microSD card to serve as a “voyage data recorder” of sorts, as well as a set of environmental sensors (temperature, barometric pressure) to detect potential weather changes. A full-sky camera with an AI-based algorithm may also provide some information on cloud cover as well.

Those are just some of the things that come to mind …

- Gough