Varuna 2.0

About the Team

The Delhi Technological University (formerly Delhi College of Engineering) has a group of students who have been working on an innovation project called the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (DTU-AUV) since 2007. The team consists of undergraduate students from multi-disciplinary background working under the guidance of Faculty Advisor Dr. Ajeet Kumar, Dept. of Applied Physics, DTU. The team depends on the generous support of sponsors to design and develop an AUV of Industrial standards.

The Team participated in Singapore AUV Challenge (SAUVC) 2018 and made it to the Finals. We received overwhelming support on social media. We are one of the few teams selected for the Final Round of NIOT SAVe’18 Chennai organised by National Institute of Ocean Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. Of India. At the 14th edition of Robosub (2011), the team qualified for the semi-finals and was placed among the top 15 teams in the world. The team's technical paper was published in IEEE ICMA 2011 which was held in China in August 2011. The team has been ranked 9th (2008) and 14th (2009) out of 32 global teams and has finished above many renowned universities of the world. DTU-AUV has also received "Most Improved Design" award at the same competition. In 2008, NDTV aired a special feature which showcased the vehicle. The team also has several newspaper articles devoted to it.

About VARUNA 2.0

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) have a wide range of applications in marine geoscience, and are increasingly being used in the scientific, military, commercial, and policy sectors.

VARUNA 2.0 is a multidisciplinary project which aims to design, fabricate and develop an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle which will serve as a technology demonstrator which is highly compact, lightweight, power optimized and can be used to perform various tasks.

The rationale behind the design is to implement and improvise the maneuverability, robustness, stability and hydrodynamics of the AUV to be able to perform discreet tasks. The AUV is modelled in SolidWorks followed by finite element analysis in Ansys to ensure the AUV sustain the environment it is exposed to. An automatic battery monitoring system is implemented for power optimization along with controlled power distribution. An acoustic based navigation system is incorporated using TDOA algorithm. The software stack is built upon ROS framework along with convolution neural network with image processing being handled by OpenCV 3.4.1. Real time analysis resulting in error correcting codes (ECC) assists in smooth navigation in dynamic environments

VARUNA 2.0 is the product of completely refined mechanical assembly, control systems, embedded systems and vision system. The mechanical model is designed to be in hydrodynamically stable equilibrium both below and above water surface. The mechanical system consists of main pressure hull, front and back lids, frame, electronics rack. The focus of embedded and the power systems department is mainly to improve the previous system in terms of reliability, modularity and power distribution. The software stack is designed to run in decentralized multi-threaded agent architecture, with the threads handling pressure sensor, acoustics, cameras, control system, IMU, mission planner each performing input and output operations in continuous loops. Dynamic control is achieved by PID control algorithms. The vision system is designed to perform tasks like buoy detection, bin detection, path detection, entry gate detection.

Our Circuits and Boards

Many parts of the AUV are made from custom electronics in order to keep the size and weight down as much as possible. We do prototyping with development boards and the electrical team designs the PCBs throughout the year using AutoCAD Eagle and Proteus paying close attention to size and tolerance.

Protection Circuit Board                                                                 

The former version of our Protection circuit included a Cut-off and a Switching Circuit. The Cut-off circuit ensured the operating voltage between a maximum and minimum threshold voltage value. The Switching Circuit ensured that the spare battery comes to play when one of the batteries malfunctions.

The latest version of our Protection Circuit encompasses more aspects of battery safety.

VARUNA 2.0 consists of Custom made inrush current protection circuitry is used to provide soft start to the AUV and limit the inrush current to avoid current spikes. In case the cell voltage is below threshold, cut off circuitry is provided which monitors individual cell voltage as well as overall voltage of the battery and cuts the power supply from the battery and at the same time switches it to the spare battery using switching circuit whenever the battery is over discharged. Reverse Polarity protection is also included in the PCB.

Amplifier Circuit Board

The Amplifier Circuit is to be used for amplification of signals in the acoustic subsystem. The IC used are of Linear Technology. The signal can be amplified upto 40db using variable resistance.