Ramius (Aqua 2 Robot) first ocean tests

We had the first tests of Ramius, the premiere model of version 2.0 of the aqua robot platform, in the open ocean today. The weather in Barbados has been quite rainy, which is unusual for early January, but not exceptional. As a result, we had two major problems: the water visibilty was moderately poor, and the people on land monitoring the tests by computer had lots of trouble with the risk of rain hitting the laptops. As a result, we had a fairly bad weekend, even though we did get some useful data.

There are also some broken wires that developed inside the robot, but those have been fixed all all systems are "go", although we are not almost a day behind schedule. In addition, the silt from the rain can takes days to dissipate, and there is more rain in the forcast.

Despite the problems, there are some exciting tests scheduled for tomorrow including a deep water validation of the Kroy model of Aqua 2.0. If all goes well, we'll take it down to 120 feet at the Stavronikita wreck at the South end of the island. Even in the rain we can run Ramius off the shore with the land users inside a covered boat house. (These tests are the subject of a future blog entry.

While doing the tests,we also completed the rescue diver course we started back home. The skills should be useful for finding lost robots, as well as divers in distress.