Hi, I am currently working on making an autonomous boat (with a team of other people). For our boat, we are using a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and a Navio2.
I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions on the general control scheme of the boat. Among our team, we discussed whether we really needed to use the Ardupilot capabilities of the Navio2 for controlling our boat or if it would just suffice to just implement PID control ourselves. In addition, we were thinking that we might not even need a PID controller, but rather, have a P-only controller (in other words, PID minus the integral and derivative aspects). Any thoughts?
I am involved with a boat project that is just starting (Indiana University) to monitor water quality on Lake Monroe. We are using a Raspberry Pi B and Navio2, set up using ArduPlane. Currently we have three propeller motors configured with differential thrust for the outer two (center is just thrust). This could be easily set up with two motors, and the current RC motors could be swapped out for trolling motors or thrusters with just a change to the motors and ESCs (this part will evolve over time).
We have a Spektrum DX8 transmitter and Orange R820X (s-bus) for manual mode, and Sik radio for communication with the ground station.
A lot depends on your goals. You can set it up as an RC plane and manually control it with a transmitter, but you will need the Navio2 if you want autonomous missions.
There are so many issues already solved in the ArduPlane and Mission Planner that it is not worth the time to write your own software (PID or otherwise).
