We are the champions!

I am incredibly grateful to be part of the Southampton Sailing Robot Team. When I joined the society in October 2017, I knew little about both sailing and programming robots based on GNU/Linux using ROS (Robot Operating System). Weekly session were great fun and the team has been very helpful in teaching me all the skills. The 1st place in World Robotic Sailing Championship was a very nice end of the academic year.

The World Robotic Sailing Championship (WRSC) and International Robotic Sailing Conference (IRSC) are organised once a year usually by one of the competing teams. Some of the previous venues include Norway, Portugal and Canada. The robotic yachts attending the competition are fully autonomous and are of two categories: up to 1.5 m and up to 4.2 m. The competition challenges comprise: fleet race, station keeping, area scanning and obstacle avoidance.

This year we (Southampton Sailing Robot Team) have decided to organise the two events in Southampton. We split our team into two groups: one organising the events and the other working on our one-meter-long robotic yacht, the Black Python, which is on the picture below. Most of the time I was part of the latter.

The Black Python was originally a yacht for RC sailing that has been amended and equipped with additional electronics to gain autonomy. The sensors on the yacht measure GPS location, wind direction, magnetic field, orientation and acceleration of the boat. This information is then processed by the onboard computer that sets sails and rudder positions. The boat is controlled by inputting GPS waypoints. For example, for the fleet race, usually three waypoints are set; the yacht then tries to reach them in a given order.

Sailing downwind is as simple as sailing straight to the waypoint, however, moving upwind demands a more sophisticated technique. In this case, the Black Python generates a zigzag path towards the waypoint, each segment in this path is slightly shorter than the previous one, so that the whole zigzag path is enclosed in a triangle whose tip is at the waypoint. Tacking (changing direction) at every corner of the path brings additional challenges because the yacht faces the wind directly for a moment; if the wind is too strong, other more sophisticated manoeuvres can be used. Large portion of our effort has been dedicated to these challenges and we came up with an algorithm that automates the process of choosing the right manoeuvre. We also published a paper called ‘Adaptive probabilistic tack manoeuvre decision for sailing vessels’. This was the first paper I ever co-authored, which was a great experience.

International Robotic Sailing Conference was run immediately after the competition. Its purpose was to gather robotic sailing community, share breakthroughs and network. Attendees came from all over the world and comprise of members of the competition teams, companies and organisations interested in robotic surface and underwater vehicles. Part of the IRSC was a banquet at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton (NOCS) with a beautiful view on the RRS James Cook, one of the most advanced research vessels in service.

The WRSC and IRSC as well as the year with Sailing Robot Team were an incredible experience. If you are interested in getting to know more about robotic sailing or our team, check our website that also contains a link to our blog and github: http://www.sotonsailrobot.org/

Jsme mistři světa!

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