An AUV Based Experimental System For The Underwater Technology Education

In this paper, I introduce a series of AUV related basin experiment platforms now we are developing as a set of underwater technology educational tool. Existing AUV platforms are very expensive for general students or schools to purchase as an educational tool so the popularity of AUV technology among the general people is not still so high in Japan. On the other hand, land based robotic contest is very popular in Japan and its educational effect seems good for the wide range of students. I think it is important for us to develop a set of handy and low cost tools oriented to the underwater technology education and AUV related platforms which can use easily in a small basin will be one of the best choices. In this paper I will introduce our concept of the AUV based experimental systems as an underwater technology educational tool. The system is composed of two types of AUV test-beds, precise ultrasound ranging system, LBL coordinate detection system and 2FSK ultrasound communication system. The hardware and software design is introduced in this paper. The AUV test beds are designed considering a convenience of basin experiment using a 7inches-diameter acrylic sphere or 17inches-diameter glass sphere with low-cost embedded system with DOS/V PC104 based subsystems. We constructed a set of 1MHz carrier frequency ultrasound ranging system and 100kHz LBL coordinate detection system. A 2FSK ultrasound communication system for basin experiment was tested. In our case, the basin is 3m(W) c3m(D)_6m(L).