Graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Florida are in the process of modifying and testing an autonomous submarine, SubjuGator, to compete in the 2001 ONR/AUVSI Underwater Vehicle Competition. SubjuGator is designed for op-eration down to 100 feet, and can be quickly configured to optimize for mobility or speed. SubjuGator’s body has mounts to support up to ten motors, each of which may be ori-ented in any direction in its plane. SubjuGator is controlled through a single-board 586 computer running the Linux operating system, which is interfaced to the motors and sen-sors through two other processors, a DSP and a microcontroller. On-board sensors in-clude a digital compass, a fluidic inclinometer, inertial measurement unit, and a pressure sensor. Additionally, mission specific sensors include a hydrophone array for acoustic ping detection and localization, a CdS array for visual strobe detection and localization and a sonar altimeter for height detection. In this paper, we first describe the mechanical makeup of SubjuGator. Next, we describe the electronic and processing hardware, and the motivation for our electronic design. We then discuss the various on-board sensors, both mission-dependent as well as mission-independent. Finally, we comment on vehicle control strategies.
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