DropCamera/ROV hybrid
Posted: Oct 4th, 2015, 1:06 am
Been working on a drop camera that may be upgraded to an rov in the future by adding (4) BlueRobotics thrusters. It uses a 4.5" O.D. acrylic tube and dome housing. The tube is oriented vertically with the dome facing downward. The p/t cam looks out the dome with lighting mounted external to the tube while another pan camera looks out the side of the tube ( possibly a hacked GoPro 3 which can supply live video as well as take high res clips and stills), the pan/tilt camera uses a mini slipring so it can pan continuously. The subsea end runs off a battery pack and has basic sensors (depth, compass, temp, etc ) as well as a sensitive hydrophone to hear marine life, mainly whales. Everything subsea is run by an arduino Mega 2560 and custom shield. Control and telemetry is over RS-485. A modified Cat5 cable is the tether with one twisted pair each for video, hydrophone and rs-485 plus ground. Topside is another arduino mega and uno for control via a game controller and all data on a video overlay screen. This is for a local non-profit Marine Science Center to use in their program with youth and adults offshore on a boat, so far they can only see and hear whats happening on the surface with the drop camera they can get a peek underwater , at least up to 250 ft deep.