Bruce : An ASV Solution for the 2016 Maritime RobotX Challenge

This paper provides an overview of the hardware and software systems developed for Bruce, the Queensland University of Technology’s Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) for entry in the 2016 Maritime RobotX Challenge. Bruce is a system-of-systems comprising the ASV, a self-contained underwater robot, and an automated vison-enabled ball launcher. An upgraded sensor suite and new mission software architecture to deal with information discovery and task sequencing built on the Robotic Operating System (ROS) has been developed to allow completion of all challenge tasks. To facilitate software development and offline testing, a highfidelity simulation model was developed and integrated with the software architecture. The ASV’s control, mapping, and taskspecific algorithms have been evaluated both in simulation and through field experiments. Results demonstrating capabilities as well as discussions on lessons learnt are also presented.