FASt - An autonomous sailing platform for oceanographic missions

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2008

Authors

José C Alves (Author) Other; Nuno A. Cruz (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: OCEANS 2008, VOLS 1-4

Pages: 2097-2103

OCEANS 2008 Conference

Quebec City, CANADA, SEP 15-18, 2008

Indexing

ISI Proceedings

ISI Web of Knowledge - 5 Citations

Scopus - 24 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Environmental engineering

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-004-4AD

DOI: 10.1109/oceans.2008.5152114

Abstract (EN): Sailing has been for long times the only means of ship propulsion at sea. Although the performance of a sailing vessel is well below the present power driven ships, either in terms of navigation speed and predictability, wind energy is absolutely renewable, clean and free. Unmanned autonomous sailing boats may exhibit a virtually unlimited autonomy and be able to perform unassisted missions at sea for long periods of time. Promising applications include oceanographic and weather data collecting, surveillance and even military applications. The Microtransat competition, launched in Europe in 2006, has been a key initiative to promote the development of robotic unmanned sailing boats. Various regattas have taken place across Europe and the ultimate challenge will be a transatlantic race. This paper presents an autonomous sailing boat developed at the University of Porto, Portugal, with emphasis on the hardware and software computing infrastructure. This platform is capable of carrying a few kilograms of sensing equipment that can be hooked to the boat's main computer, also providing support for short and long range data communications.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 7