Wow. What an ambitious
Wow. What an ambitious idea. This would be so cool!
A biologist friend of mine who works at the local Sea Center knows of my recent interest in robotics and told me that submerging explorer bots are frequently used deep in the ocean where human submarines can’t go. After a little more research I found out that they represent a large fraction of autonomous robots, so a lot of research has gone into this field already. Perhaps the first step to take is to get in touch with researchers or a company who have been building these things for a while. I would imagine that those engineers are passionate about their work, since it’s pretty awesome work that they’re doing, and they would likely be more than happy to share information with amateur robot makers who have such an ambitious goal.
A quick Google search gave me this link: http://www.learnaboutrobots.com/undersea.htm
I then Googled those companies and got these links:
http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/research/projects/subsea/auvSIRIUS.shtml “We are working on the development of a small GPS tracker unit as part of on-going work with the University of Sydney’s Centre for the Ecological Impact of Coastal Cities”
http://www.marinescience.neu.edu/
http://www.schilling.com/ Said of one of their models: “Automatic control modes, including heading (semi/full), depth, altitude, attitude, and StationKeep™, using a Doppler velocity log” (These guys are the top dogs in the industry, it seems. Definitely worth pestering.)
There are obviously plenty of engineering problems to overcome, but I see the main challenge being the cost. Assuming that the robot needs the ability to submerge, charge, propel, steer, sense, and more, it will easily cost a few thousand USD to complete. It is doable, that much I’m sure of, but the cost will be substantial.
However, the groups listed above, especially Schilling, would no doubt take a special interest in our humble endeavor. It is possible that they would provide some funding. Corporations give large sums of their profits every year to various organizations in order to improve their public image and get their name in the news. A project like this certainly fits the bill for something they’d want to get in the press for, but it wouldn’t happen if the builders here didn’t really have their act together and we could prove to them that we’re serious.
If funding is out of the question, which is of course very possible, then unless someone here is tired of having heavy pockets, we’ll have to all chip in.
The first thing that needs to happen for this to happen is that there needs to be a designated builder. Having multiple builders is unreasonable since everyone on this site is so spread out. Perhaps we could limit it to a region, like for example I know that many of you are from the UK and Ireland, but even then you are all pretty well spread apart.
Having a designated builder seems like it will be the biggest problem, especially if LMR users chip in money, because it puts pressure on that one person to do a good job.
I have more to say on this topic, but I think I’ll stop for now. 
One last link: http://www.rc-sub.com/Projects.html
