The ORCA VII Vehicle
The ORCA-VII follows the basic modular design philosophy of previous incarnations of ORCA.
The mechanical frame and core systems are mostly unchanged from the 2003 entry allowing
development efforts to be concentrated on redesigning some of the systems for increased performance and reliability.
The motor controllers
used in the vehicle have been completely redesigned
from previous competitions. The speed controllers used in ORCA VII are
derived from the 'OSMC' controller design, modified for the restricted
space and lower current requirements of our vehicle
A custom MEMs-based inertial measurement unit has been developed and an
off the shelf camera system is for used detecting and targeting the optical
beacon provided in the competition arena.
Also, vision algorithms
have been developed to determine the existence, position, and orientation of
any rectangular bins in the field of view of ORCA-VII's downward facing camera
More information is available in the ORCA-VII Journal Paper