The Microship Status Reports

Microship Status 1/7/94 by Steven K. Roberts

In This Issue:

Ece Project Teams
Mcs Hub Manager
Audio Crossbar Network
Serial Crossbar Network
Video Switcher
Environmental Data Collection
Gps And Initial Navigation Sensors
Ultrasonic Ranging System
Solar Array Profiler
Hull And Deck Weight Estimates

Distribution of these "daily reports" is currently 110 people: 68 UCSD students 8 UCSD faculty/staff 34 industry, sponsors, friends, and others

Yikes. It's getting harder and harder to keep up with these reports -- I'm finally driven to writing one when the accumulated activities make me realize that it's either going to be embarrassingly sketchy or ponderously huge, and that I better take a break long enough to report what I've been up to. Things have been BUSY here.

First, a quick scheduling update -- I mentioned in the 12/27/93 issue that I might be going to Seattle/Victoria this month to pick up the new kayak outriggers. I've decided against this, since the ECE190B class is now in full swing and being gone for 2 of the remaining 9 weeks is probably a bad idea. So I'll be around almost every day, probably as a succession of marathons like the past 60 hours... working til I drop, sleeping in the lab, crawling to the basement shower, then diving back in... zombie-like, driven, caffeine-wired, obsessive, immersed in FORTH/proposals/meetings/specs/hardware. But hey, tonight I go HOME for the evening! I find that strangely exciting...
Anyway... on with the updates...

Ece Project Teams

At present count, there are 12 people in the ECE190B senior design class with Clark Guest and me, working on the ship. Also, all learning FORTH, 68HC11 interfacing, multidrop networking, packaging, documentation, and, and...

The following paragraphs briefly detail the projects that have been assigned to or chosen by the participants. These do not necessarily correspond one-to-one with nodes on the control network -- the objective is to identify conceptual components that are on a realistic scale for a successful one-quarter project, and package them in a way that can be easily integrated with later work. Nor does this represent

ALL of the projects that have been identified -- limits on available people, space, tools, and hardware force us to put off a few things till Spring.
MCS Projects in Progress
------------------------
MCS HUB MANAGER (Michael Bream and Chris Tuft). This is the central FORTH software for the Hub, the 68HC11 that sits atop the control network of 15 other processors. This project includes the basic monitoring functions, Easy-A protocol tools, 2-line LCD status display, simple keypad access, pass-through connections from a high-level application system, and inter-node mail processing that allows a sort of poor man's peer-to-peer networking.
AUDIO CROSSBAR NETWORK (Isaac Chu and Jason Corley). This system owns a massive 8816-based analog crossbar network with 32 inputs and 32 outputs, all conditioned by TL084 op amps to allow standard line-levels through the net. All of the ship's audio devices will interconnect through this, and the project will yield the device control tools, internal array that reflects crossbar status, and a text-based front-end that allows high-level systems (or humans) to add and drop links. The team will also subject the finished network to audio noise and distortion tests, and provide initial calibration for the test suite of devices in the lab.
SERIAL CROSSBAR NETWORK (Jeff Simon and Dan Sebald). Architecturally, this is similar to the above, but all switching is done in pairs to accommodate the needs of random serial interconnects throughout the ship. The software tools locally provide all the network management, and also include some functions in the Hub that allow it to intelligently re-route its own console and permit cellular logins or alternate host systems. One special function allows any high-level processor to "subscribe" to the multidrop network traffic for diagnostic purposes.
VIDEO SWITCHER (Delon Levi). This project will experimentally establish whether 8816 bandwidth is sufficient to pass video signals without distortion, and will proceed to implement a crossbar network of 16x8 nodes. Later, this will accommodate the ship's cameras, still-frame processing, ATV transceiver, console monitor, and so on. During this quarter, the objective here will be to selectively route a couple of available video sources to the Ampro/Sharp color LCD display or to a local VCR/monitor. Luke Abbott, who is our official project videographer, will work with Delon Levi on this.
ENVIRONMENTAL DATA COLLECTION (Tom Barnes). Although we do not yet have the full suite of environmental probes (which will hopefully include temperature, pH, salinity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, radiation, and various meteorological sensors), this project will begin with radiation and temperature and hopefully add one or two water-quality sensors from Scripps. The software will acquire data blocks on demand, tag them with a time stamp as well as latitude and longitude from the GPS receiver, and return a variable-length string to the host.
GPS AND INITIAL NAVIGATION SENSORS (Henry Xia). This system, which will expand into a fully autonomous navigation role, will begin this quarter with tools to acquire GPS data from the Motorola Traxar + (NMEA 0183) as well as depth and compass heading. These are maintained in an internal array, and are retrieved every second or so by the hub for display on the console LCD. Next quarter, we will try to integrate this with packet radio and GeoQuery on the Macintosh, allowing a person to walk around the UCSD campus and be tracked by a moving blip on an electronic map.
ULTRASONIC RANGING SYSTEM (Carl Mascarenas). This began as a component in the ship's security system, but may have application as well in foggy docking and "watch mode" when knowing the distance to an object well inside minimum radar range is valuable. This project will reverse-engineer a commercial ultrasonic ranging device, extract BCD distance from LED drive signals, and return the distance to the nearest object whenever requested by the Hub via the control network.
SOLAR ARRAY PROFILER (Mohammed Sarhadi and Mehrdad Heydari). In order to allow ongoing diagnostics and module performance analysis of the solar panels, this project will yield a pair of processors, one for each array, that maintain internal running averages of the current sourced by each of the 12 modules in its local domain. Over time, if trouble occurs, these values will reveal declining performance that would otherwise be impossible to assess in a parallel-connected system. Via inter-node mail, these processors also enable or disable their 360-watt charge sources onto the bus and report the amount of current they are delivering.

As all these develop over the next 9 weeks, we'll issue summary reports on progress here (though much more detail will be available in the mailing list limited to the participants).

Other projects are underway in Computer Science and Mechanical Engineering, and I'll report on those next time. These eight will be keeping me busy for a while, as we are also building the bench network, learning FORTH together, and dealing with a wide variety of interface issues. It's going to be an exhausing 9 weeks, but when it's all over, the Microship Control System should be well established, easily extensible, and hackable from a remote host. Among many other things, we're looking at four different applications for fuzzy logic, Ampro front-end software, Mac wireless networking, cellular phone interfaces, ham and marine radio control, the video turret with gyroscopic platform reference, battery management, thruster control, and much, much more... Stay Tuned!

You might remember from my previous mutterings in these reports that I spent most of the "holidays" writing the initial specs on the control system. This 55-page document is now complete (it will change, of course), and you're welcome to peruse it at your liesure. I will probably maintain the current version on the NRL.UCSD.EDU gopher site, which John Studarus has implemented on the Tadpole SPARCbook. At the moment, though, you have your choice of hardcopy in my office or email in yours...

Hull And Deck Weight Estimates

Robb Walker has just reported the following:
Preliminary estimates for main hull/deck shell (no structure):
Hull Surface Area: 275 sq. ft. Wetted Surface: 95 sq. ft. Deck Surface Area: 100 sq. ft.
Base hull panel wt: 1.2 lbs/sq. ft. Bottom panel wt: 1.5 lbs/sq. ft.
Hull/Deck Shell Wt: 360 lbs. VCG: 2.60 ft. below deck (-2.60) LCG: 15 ft aft bow (approx. 5.0)
Bulkhead and primary structure weights can be estimated at 1.0 lbs/sq. ft. Secondary structure can be estimated at .5-.75 lbs/sq. ft.

Robb, as well as the mechanical group including TJ Tyler and Jeff Klompus (who will be working together this quarter on the structural analysis of crossbeams, trailering, and internal frame), will be meeting here at the lab tomorrow to discuss the structure in detail. I'll report on this soon!
I'm fried. There's more to tell, but I haven't been more than a coffeshop away from the engineering building for three days. I'm outta here....

Cheers! Steve