About

TREVOR (Test Robotics Environment Vehicle for Ocean Research) is a prototype modular uncrewed surface vehicle (USV). The base vehicle was originally developed circa 2007-2008 as a tool for conducting seagrass surveys in shallow estuarine environments. In early 2023, it was reimagined by COMIT as a testing platform for hardware and software aimed at acquiring various types of hydrospatial data. The vehicle was rechristened as TREVOR and underwent a thorough retrofit to support this new mission. Nearly all non-structural components (electronics, communications, power) were completely replaced and many structural components were updated or significantly modified. The new design is intended to be flexible and has an initial focus on multibeam echosounders integrated with other sensors for seafloor mapping.

Design Principles

Open Source
- Others can reproduce physical parts and software
- Promote external collaboration or extensions
- Well documented and reusable software
- Collaborate with partner institutions
Efficient to produce at low/medium volumes
- Contemporary manufacturing techniques
- 3D printing, laser cut by mail
Repeatable
- Can be produced easily with minimal tooling
- Software can be used with minimal skill operators
Precise
- Dimensionally accurate for precise survey offsets
- Reproducible, interchangeable parts
TacoMax (modular) form factor
- Max size for the bed of a medium pickup…such as a Toyota Tacoma

Installation

The Trevor ASV software leverages the CCOM project 11 repository for autonomoy features. At this time, Project 11 is only offered as a ROS1 Package Therefore, we will need to create 2 ROS worspaces and a bridge workspace to make it work. Fortunately, we provide you with pre-configured repositories to do this with minimal fuss!

let's begin by cloning the workspaces. For this example I assume you are creating them in a ~/ros/ directory

Get all the source code

On the control laptop...

cd ~/ros

the first repo we need is the ROS2 workspace for trevor things
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/USF-COMIT/trevor_ws.git
next let's get the project11 related stuff
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/USF-COMIT/trevor_project11_ws.git
finally, grab the project 11 bridge to link everything together
git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/USF-COMIT/project11_bridge.git
now get all the dependencies. Note that because we are on foxy we need ot use a special rosdep update command
rosdep update --include-eol-distros

rosdep install --from-paths trevor_ws/src --ignore-src -r -y

rosdep install --from-paths trevor_project11_ws/src --ignore-src -r -y

rosdep install --from-paths project11_bridge/ros1_ws/src --ignore-src -r -y

rosdep install --from-paths project11_bridge/ros1_ws/src --ignore-src -r -y

Compile

each package has its own compile script for your convenience. Just run each one!

~/ros/trevor_ws/build.sh
~/ros/trevor_project11_ws/build.sh
~/ros/project11_bridge/build.sh

sending code to the vehicle

the code on the vehicle does not use git. Instead, the repositories should be synced with rsync. There is a script you can use to this in

~/ros/trevor_ws/util/deploy.py

this will upload and build the code on trevor automatically for the trevor_ws.

For the other two workspace you need to upload them manually with an rsync command like this:

rsync -ravP --exclude-from='.gitignore' --exclude '.git*' ../trevor_project11_ws  trevor@trevor1.local:~/ --delete
 
rsync -ravP --exclude-from='.gitignore' --exclude '.git*' ../project11_bridge  trevor@trevor1.local:~/ --delete

Then you must ssh into the vehicle and run the build script in the root of each workspace. Be warned, the project11_bridge takes a long time so don't re-build unnecessarily.

Getting Started

To begin operations start by visiting our operators field guide

For additional documentation on the hardware, electronics, and software visit our detailed documentation

Credits

This package was created by Dr. Kristopher Krasnosky and Jaden Crute of the USF COMIT group and offered under the Apache 2.0 License.