A wind and Solar-Powered Autonomous Surface Vehicle for sea surface measurements

This paper outlines the development of the Wind and Solar Powered Autonomous Surface Vehicle (WASP), an unmanned autonomous long-range surface vehicle. We aim to develop mission specific systems to forecast environmental events and to trace the distribution of meteorological and ocean conditions over a long-term period (about 6 months at a time). The WASP consists of a 2.4 Meter Class Sailboat hull, a composite wing, a 2000 Watt-hour battery reservoir, a system of control actuators, a control system running from a LPC 2138 Development Board, a suite of oceanographic sensors, and potential power regeneration from both solar and wind energy. This paper briefly discusses the motivation for such system development, adresses key aspects of the design, comments on modeling, and concludes with recommendations of future work.