Inventions, Vol. 6, Pages 91: Design of Small Unmanned Surface Vehicle with Autonomous Navigation System Maintaining ecosystems is one of the current leading public concerns. Some of the pressing problems that threaten water resources are pollution of water bodies with floating debris, illegal extraction of water resources, wear and tear of underwater communications. Therefore, the creation of special technical solutions is urgent. This paper reports a model-based design of an unmanned surface vehicle (USV), purposed to control and maintain the oxygen level and parameters such as acidity and the water temperature in rivers, lakes, inland waterways, and coastal waters. The developed USV navigation autopilot is described as a system with two inputs and one output. The autopilot selected is an adaptive controller based on the concept of proportional, integral, and derivative (PID). The autopilot is implemented on the STM32 microcontroller and allows precisely maintaining a given course, adjusting the speed and angle of rotation during wind drift and other influences. The new technique for sensor calibration and data acquisition is described. Simulation results are given, showing the performance of the autopilot algorithm in response to variations in the environment. The numerical experiments of the model have presented the result of confirming the sufficient correspondence between prototype characteristics and simulation results. Finally, thorough field trials were performed to verify the reliability and precision of the proposed solutions. The developed unmanned surface vehicle can be used for environmental monitoring (water sampling, hydrography, patrolling water areas). In turn, the solutions obtained will be suitable for the design of other USV of different sizes.
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