SailBot: Raspberry Pi boat crossing the Atlantic

Ahoy me hearties. Say ‘Aye’, for Captain Pi, who has taken the helm of the good boat Ada, now skirmishing across the Atlantic ocean.

This swashbuckling adventure comes courtesy of the crew at UBC (University of British Columbia).

The students grew weary of winning the International Robotic Sailing Regatta (three years in a row) and decided their ship needed a bigger adventure.

The result is Ada (officially named “UBC SailBot ADA”). This fully-autonomous boat, controlled by Raspberry Pis, is sailing from America to Ireland.

https://vimeo.com/161308549

Building a robotic boat

Joshua Baker, Control Team, explains how it all works on the UBC SailBot blog.

“There are two identical control boxes on either side of the boat below deck, one on the port side and one on the starboard side,” says Joshua. “Each control box contains a microcomputer (Raspberry Pi and a microcontroller (Arduino Mega), among other components. Above deck on the tripod, there is another Raspberry Pi, endearingly referred to as the “OA Pi” [Obstacle Avoidance]. This translates and sends data from our infrared cameras”

“The goal of the Raspberry Pi devices below deck is to take information from the OA hardware, weather data from the internet, and current GPS coordinates from the Arduino, and use all that information to produce a series of waypoints,” explains Joshua.

This data is then used to plot a course, and Arduino Megas are used to navigate from one waypoint to the next. In essence, the Raspberry Pi is the captain, the Arduino Mega is the crew.

The sailboat is aiming for West Ireland (the map’s pointing to the shores of Brandon Bay). You can track Ada’s progress on the UBC Website.

Ada’s ETA for arrival is 13 days (13 September). Just in time for International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yaaar