This is fantastic! I always wanted to do this. When I worked on it (many years back) I went with a Texas Instrument MSP430. RasPi is much much more advanced than my little micro controller. That held the course using a compass and an old linear drive out of a tiller pilot. I abandoned the project after the linear drive broke... I have a Simrad wheel pilot now but I would love to get another go at it with better hardware...
Cheers, Aaron R. 1979 30-MK1 Annapolis, MD > On Jan 21, 2014, at 2:24 AM, "Colomba" <colo...@peter-gottwald.de> wrote: > > Good day > > I`m wondering if there is anybody who want to build a DIY autopilot? If so, > it would be interesting to discuss/combine ideas. > > In the moment my idea ... and what I`ve done so far is following: > - Controll unit with a raspberry pi > - language Python (because I really do not know C to handle this properly) > > The idea in the moment is to use this year the old wheel pilot (Navico) as > steering unit. If the controll unit will work fine, I will change the > steering unit next winter and will mount a linear drive under deck. > > What I`ve done up to now ... > I took the code of FishPi autopilot as basic to change to the things which I > think are usefull. > For time being I integrated a compass/magnetrometer/accelerometer module, > called cmps10. It`s cheap and doing it`s job. > For GPS signal I`m using a simple USB GPS mouse to figure out > Lon/Lat/speed/course > ... not done yet ... integrate a reader for wind direction. On board I have > the NASA clipper instruments and will read this datas via Atmel microchip, > connected to the controll system via I2Cbus. Atmel Afinity 1327 Chip is > programmed and working, but up to now no test if it`s working with the NASA > clipper instrument, due to the fact, mast is down for winter... so I have to > play arround first to test it on board, but ... it`s cold outside, so I`m > still waiting. > > Rudderangle, just working, with a potentiometer and signals collected by GPIO > pins of raspberry pi. > > Route planing .... FishPi provide the idea of integrating routes in gpx > format. I think that idea is ok for an autonomus vehicle, but I do not like > that idea. I`ve tested to run opencpn and FishPi parallel on the raspberry > .... and it works, so I take the signal from opencpn for heading to next > waypoint via UDP and can use opencpn. > > For output, Ive integrated a motor controll via SDA network, which should > work with a PA with the wheel unit. Not tested yet. > > There are a lot of things to do to get everything working nicely. > - define sailing situation with no go areas (i.e. downwind or app +-38° head > wind) > - define a "learning tool" to define rudder gain vs heeling and acceleration, > my idea is to create a simple database and to store real life datas. > - implement a kalman filter or a complementary filter (which I prefere for > time being) > - of cause ... to find a nice housing and screen to have the stuff mounted at > wheel also to sea seamap at wheel > > One may say, hey, you can by this stuff, exactly what you want ... correct. > But first of all, the hardware will cost me as DIY project about 100 € > instead of min 1000 € ... the other thing is, it makes fun to create the own > platform. > > So, if anybody is interesting to join this project, he/she is wellcome ;-) > > best regards > Peter > C&C34 Colomba > > _______________________________________________ > This List is provided by the C&C Photo Album > http://www.cncphotoalbum.com > CnC-List@cnc-list.com
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