A water sensing device control system for long-term monitoring

Abstract

Marine and lake robotics is gaining attention to monitor and study water environmental changes. We are developing a sensing device that can move to an arbitrary position or keep a fixed position in the water for long term environmental monitoring. The characteristics of our device are low-power, low-cost, omni-directional movement and portability. In this paper, we present a long-term surface monitoring system, a prototype of the sensing device and a control system. The proposed device goals are to move to any arbitrary direction or maintain its positions autonomously in the ocean or lake. We executed multiple experiments which confirmed the concepts feasibility but also identified some issues with the control system.