With the provision of highly effective and cheap autopilot modules, constructing small, autonomous autos is now effectively throughout the attain of the common producer. [rctestflight] has lengthy been keen about working on this area, and has tried long-range autonomous missions on the Washington Lakes for a while now. His final try turned out to be a terrific success. (Video, embedded under.)

The development follows earlier makes an attempt to make a 13 km mission with an airboat, itself chosen to keep away from issues in early checks with algae wrapped across the propellers. For this try, [Daniel] selected to construct a customized fiberglass boat hull and mix each underwater propellers and a fan. The aim was to supply a variety of thrust, whereas aiming for redundancy. As an added bonus, the fan pivots with the boat’s rudder, serving to to supply extra turning authority.

After many changes to the ArduPilot management system, the aptly named SS Banana Slug was prepared for its lengthy vary mission. Regardless of some preliminary considerations about low battery voltages as a result of chilly, the boat accomplished its 13 km lengthy journey throughout the lake for a complete mission time of over three hours. Subsequent effectivity calculations recommend that the boat’s on-board batteries might doubtlessly carry out missions over 100 km earlier than operating out.

This reveals that, even with an autopilot and mapping resolution out of the field, there’s nonetheless an amazing quantity of engineering required for any profitable long-range mission, whether or not on land, sea or within the air. tunes.