PC/104 hardware steers student vehicle under water

A George Institute of Technology graduate student team will be relying on Parvus embedded PC/104 computing hardware to power its autonomous underwater vehicle in an international competition.

A George Institute of Technology graduate student team will be relying on Parvus embedded PC/104 computing hardware to power its autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) in the AUVSI/ONR 8th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition taking place from 3rd to 7th August 2005 at the US Navy's Space and Naval Warfare (SPAWAR) Systems Centre in San Diego.

To assist the Georgia Tech student team in this annual unmanned submarine contest, Parvus donated several of its SpacePC embedded PC boards, OnPower PC/104 power supplies and I/O modules.

These compact, ruggedised components provide an ideal computing platform to support the university team in navigating their custom-design AUV through a series of demanding trials at SPAWAR's Transducer Evaluation Centre (TRANSDEC).

Georgia Tech's team captain John (Jack) Griffin selected Parvus' products for his team's submarine (the Nautilus) because of the compact, highly reliable, ruggedised nature of Parvus' PC/104 product line.

The Parvus boards are responsible for processing streaming video data, customised mapping software, problem solving, priority tasking, as well as agent-based artificial intelligence (AI) for on-the-fly decision making.

"The reliability and interoperability of Parvus' products have far exceeded our expectations", said Griffin.

"Processing vision data is very difficult because of the large amount of real-time data and the computationally intense algorithms".

"Parvus' CPUs handle this load with time to spare".

The Nautilus submarine incorporates three embedded processors, serving as the brains of the unit, which communicates with its surroundings in connection with Parvus' PC/104 Ethernet card and 62 channel digital I/O board.

The "eyes" of the AUV are two video cameras connected by USB.

Through these eyes, the SpacePC CPUs gather and processes data critical to mission objectives.

The purpose of the competition, which focuses on autonomous robotics, is to successfully navigate an unmanned submarine through a field of obstacles and complete its programmed mission.

There are three basic missions each AUV will tackle.

The Georgia Tech team consists of 10 students: two graduates and eight undergraduates.

Their fields of study include computer science, mechanical engineering and aeronautical engineering.

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