Alex Lorman alex@alexlorman.com

While CTO and co-founder of Sea Machines, I am working to bring autonomy to the somewhat staid maritime space through our technologies and our prototype boat.
I sourced and converted a 24ft Dutch river tugboat into a fully drive-by-wire, well engineered and reliable tested vessel from which we could test our autonomy software and carry out missions in Boston harbor.
I integrated Siemens S7 300 PLCs to the boat while interfacing them to the Linux based control computers. All actuation is done through Siemens remote Profibus I/O through a distributed network.

(Seen below, the Sea Machines team being interviewed on our vessel by the Discovery Channel.)

The development of a Human Machine Interface for a vessel that is completely drive-by-wire presented some of its own problems. Since the vessel has dual azimuth thrusters, a control scheme that controlled both thruster angles, engine throttle and clutching was required. Manifesting this system onto two joysticks (seen right, in phases of design - finished unit) in such a way that someone could be taught to drive the system quickly was a challenge.

Seen below is the symbolic wiring diagram of the vessel. This, along with the the accompanying spreadsheet, helped keep the build-out of the boat planned and on track. It also allowed for precise purchasing with little waste of wire and connections. Overall, the boat has 2,400 ft of wire, several communication busses and several different power systems. Thanks to smart equipment choices and the reliability of the boat, we have experienced few equipment malfunctions.