India Entry Page - Sailing Auto Pilot - Competition - Ready For Tomorrow 2022

Thanks Phil! I had been waiting for the selections!

Is there a choice for the prize? As I already have quite a few items from the prize pool. 

My address details are correct as given in my profile.

Thanks! 

Congratulations  rsjawale24 you are the winner of this segment.  
We are pleased to let you know that your suggestion was selected as one of our favorites.
You will be sent one of the prizes from the prize pool for these competitions. 

Please make sure the address on your account is current and up to date! 

Phil 

e14phil Hey! Any update on the winners of the international as well region/country specific contest?

The main aim is to take advantage of the smartphone display, reduce cost and complexity of the auto pilot system.
Here the auto pilot system is divided in two parts - The sensors and the control part.

The basic block diagram of my suggestion is as shown below -

There will be multiple sensors(described later) connected to the auto-pilot controller with USB interface and audio-visual alarms.

• Sensors -

         In order to control the sail and the boat, a rudder sensor, a wind sensor, anemometer, pressure sensor and a position/angle sensor is suggested. The position/angle sensor will sense the direction of the sail and will adjust it accoding to the inputs received from other sensors such as wind and pressure. Last but not least, an underwater ultrasonic sensor to detect any underwater rocks or debris which could prove fatal for the boat if it hits them. All these sensors will be interfaced to the main auto-pilot controller which in Alberto's case is an Arduino.

• Here, for the main auto-pilot controller, I suggest using an alternate to Arduino as an auto-pilot is a critical component and should do fast computing and processing of many sensor inputs.

      For the auto-pilot controller, I suggest an Raspberry Pi Pico or other smaller variant of Raspberry pi as they offer higher compuational speeds as compared to an Arduino. A Raspberry Pi Pico can replace the main MCU of the system without adding to the cost and overall size of the system. Owing to the Pi Pico's 32-bit architecture and the various GPIO pins and ADC along with SPI, UART, I2C controllers, it will ensure that the calculations required for the PID controllers and the control of the actuator (for auto-pilot) using feedback from sensors can be done much faster and efficient way. Think of this as the ECU of the car or the ADAS in modern vehicles. The core component needs to take fast decisions as any delay could prove to be fatal. By using a Pi Pico, the auto-pilot system can become more powerful where it can handle complex data processing and make faster decisions as compared to an Arduin.

One  example is given below-
     An Arduino has a 10-bit inbuilt ADC which means the voltage levels of the external signal can be quantized to only 2^10 = 1024 levels whereas a Pi Pico has 12 bit ADC which means, 2^12 = 4096 levels. This allows a much finer resolution for the sensor signals and leaves less margin for error which is crucial for any auto-pilot system.

• Power
     Along with this, a reliable source of power is also needed. Solar and wind energy could be the best options given that it is a boat sailing on open water. 
• Emergency -
  In case of an emerygency or faults, the manual override switch is useful. Just in case the control has to be transferred to the user, or if the autopilot system fails or otherwise.
  
  
• A USB interface can be provided such that it can be connected to a modern day smartphone and all the sensor values as well as data and alarms can be dislayed on the smartphone with the help of a smartphone app. Just connect the smartphone over USB to the auto-pilot system and you can see all the sensor data on the mobile screen.
• Lastly, alarms should be generated for any faults or event triggers in the auto-pilot system. The alarms should be visual as well as audio so that they don't go unnoticed.

I hope these suggestion will keep the overall cost of the system to a minimum at the same time increase the processing power and speed of the auto-pilot system. Also, I have avoided any kind of wireless connectivity in the auto-pilot system as wireless systems may lead to connectivity issues due to latency, channel fading (due to bad weather on the sea), etc as an auto-pilot system is very critical and we don't want any loss in connectivity.