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Remote control software for a Sailboat

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Here is the software I've developed for a remote controlled model sailboat. The software and the sail boat is in working condition. I've sailed it many times. The model sailboat is a monohull (length ~75cm) with a rigid wing sail. The rigid wing sail changes its shape by bending itself around the midpoint of the chord. The remote control software is a web application that uses jquery and bootstrap. It has slider controls for the mainsheet and the rudder. It also has the a slider for setting the bend angle of the wing sail. It also displays the camera feed if a camera is present.

There are 2 modes of control

• Manual: You need to manually slide the controls.
• Tilt: You control by tilting your device. Left/right tilt controls the rudder. Forward/Backward tilt controls the mainsheet, ie. angle of the wing sail. The bend angle of the wing sail is not controlled my any tilt, it is usualy left at a fixed setting. The camera slider controls the frame rate.

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The hardware is a raspberrypi 2. It is connected to a adafruit 12 channel servo controller. The raspberrypi is setup as a wifi hotspot. That way you can connect to it via any device and control the boat via a web browser.

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Version 2: Planned on 1.1.2017 Goals:

• Make it 3D printable,
• make the hardware & boat smaller,
• turn it into a foiling catamaran,
• add a wind direction sensor and accelerometer, use it to adjust wing sail & rudder angle and capsize prevention.

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Status: Jan 2, 2017:

• Ported it to raspberrypi 0.
• Replaced adafruit servo controller with pigpio library, eliminating the need for the hardware. The servo's still work very well w/o any jitter.