Laurel DeMarco: The Re-Boat Controller: Joystick Control for an Autonomous Catamaran

Laurel DeMarco worked on the Atlantis project for Surf-IT 2007 at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She worked for Gabriel Elkaim on the Atlantis in the autonomous systems lab. The Atlantis is a self-sailing, 7.2m long, winged catamaran. Its purpose is to serve as an unmanned marine vehicle, using various sensors and wind propulsion.

Laurel, working with Dan Berman, concentrated on developing a joystick control for the Atlantis. The purpose is to provide an interface for controlling the Atlantis autonomous catamaran when autonomous control is not available. Laurel used a common USB joystick, modified to use the CAN bus system. An Infineon XC164CS Microcontroller was used for analog to digital conversions, CAN, SPI, and general-purpose I/O capabilities. SPI was used with a secure digital card that will be implemented in the future to record all CAN messages sent throughout the catamaran.