Narwhal
2008 AUV

For 2008, the USNA AUV team goal was to improve on last year's design. Our vehicle was shortened by about half and simplified significantly. In addition, the ballast calculations were done far more precisely than last year. The vehicle electronics were all place into one Pelican waterproof case, which required us to rebuild our electrical system. Our thruster kill switch was completely redesigned to improve robustness in the water. The vision system was significantly upgraded from one CMU-2 camera to two DVT Legend 542C cameras with color recognition. The sonar system is still in the process of being constructed and integrated into the vehicle. The computer programming architecture and navigational subsystem were largely left intact, due to their performance at last year's competition.