Proceedings of the 23rd CANCAM
DEVELOPMENT OF A DYNAMIC VARIABLE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM FOR USE IN WIND POWERED YACHTS. Alexandre Bergeron and Natalie Baddour Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Ottawa Ottawa, Ontario E-mail: aberg098@uottawa.ca, nbaddour@uottawa.ca
trimmed depending on intended direction of travel and wind conditions. This requires a fair amount of operator skill and, depending on the size of the boat, teamwork. As such, throughout history there has been a long tradition of contests amongst sailors and their boats.
ABSTRACT The present study is on the design process of an inertial measurement data acquisition system intended for use in sailboats. The variables of interest are 3-axis acceleration, 3-axis rotation, GPS position/velocity, magnetic compass bearing and wind speed/direction. The prototype is then submitted to a basic functionality test successfully.
Modern sailing races include the “America’s Cup” and the “Volvo Ocean Race”. These events can have budgets running above tens of millions of dollars [1]. This vast investment at the higher levels has not quite yet filtered down to the lower “club” levels of racing or the consumer level. This trend is unlike what is seen in the automotive industry, where the innovations seen in racing can and are applied to the mass produced models. Many of these technical developments are not shared with the larger sailing community as they contribute to the competitive edge of one team over another; therefore few of these innovations are available to an average club sailor.
INTRODUCTION An inertial measurement unit (IMU) is a device which is used primarily to assess the movement of an object with relation to the Earth. It is a combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes, typically arranged orthogonally along three axes so as to measure the inertial acceleration of the unit.
Potential benefits of integrating IMUs to sailboats and reducing the overall cost to the consumer are enormous. This technology could allow the same level of performance analysis to be made for a wide variety of teams, facilitating crew training and providing the skipper with better “realtime” information. All of which could be used to improve the overall performance of a given boat and crew combination.
Typical applications of IMU devices are for inertial navigation in various vehicles such as aircraft, UAVs, missiles and land based craft. An extension of inertial navigation is autonomous control of these vehicles. Other uses include motion capture of vehicles, various objects and the human body. The majority of commercial off the shelf (COTS) IMUs targeted at the average consumer are intended for the motorsports and video gaming markets. The aim of this project is to explore the possibility of applying this level of technology to the competitive sailing realm.
Inertial measurement data is also critical in improving archaic sailboat design methods, especially in the area of rigging and mast design. Traditional methods such as Skene’s method [2] or the Nordic Boat Standard [3] employ a great deal of arbitrary and empirical factors, as well as rules of thumb to accomplish their goals. Armed with true inertial data, a designer could better assess the given loads on a full size prototype and further refine it. This would lead to a better optimization of the boat’s design and construction, as well as greater refinement of existing design methodology and standards.
BACKGROUND A. Sailboats Sailboats comprise any type of vessel using the wind as its primary method of propulsion. Traditionally, this is accomplished through a vertical cloth aerofoil that can be
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