ECE 110/120 Honors Lab Section : DUKW

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of this project is to create and amphibious vehicle(DUKW) that is controlled by an Arduino. It will be controlled by a person and switch between drive types automatically with a wet sensor. If time permits we plan to make the body of the vehicle out of fiberglass and add a solar panel.

Background Research

Please provide details on the background research your group has done for your project. Explain what drives you to work on this project and/or why this project is important. Also include discussions on any similar projects your group have looked at in coming up with your project. How is your proposed project different or similar to those your group have looked at. 

We first had to search up what a DUKW was.  A DUKW is "an amphibious version of the 2-1/2 ton General Motors cargo truck.  It was developed by the U. S. Army during World War II as a means to deliver cargo from ships at sea, directly to shore"[1]. Our group found this vehicle to be quite interesting that a cargo truck was retrofitted to be an amphibious vehicle so we decided to build it as our project. However, we did not have a sensor in our build which we needed. We decided to use a wet sensor to determine if the duck was in the water or out of the water as our sensor. We would use something similar to a sensaphone water detection sensor. The reason we want something similar to this sensor is because "users receive an alert when the sensor comes into contact with water"[2]. Instead of the signal to a user we hope to get a signal to switch the drive type. For our motors we were thinking of using bilge pumps.

Block Diagram / Flow Chart

*Correction: We are using Fiberglass not plexiglass

System Overview

We are splitting the design process of our project into two major sections. The electronics/Arduino section and the physical body of the DUKW.  The Arduino part is further divided into the land control, water control and water/land transition. We plan to have two propellers so that we can control the direction of the DUKW in the water. Some other electronic parts that we are going to need include motors, motor controllers , a battery and a battery charging circuit. At first we will CAD a buoyant design for the body and 3d print it, but if we have time, we will make the body out of fiberglass. 

Parts

Provide a list of parts that you may need for your project. You should include details such as the quantity, model number, purpose, vendor, and price (excluding taxes and shipping) for each part. This list may change as you work on your project. 

Possible Challenges

• One design challenge will be sufficiently waterproofing all of the DUKW's internal electronics. It's very easy to accidently look over multiple little wire splices/connections, so it is very important that our groups goes over all of the components in our system to make sure they are all safely waterproofed. 
  
  
• The second design challenge will be properly setting up the DUKW so that it will seamlessly go from operating on land to water and vice versa.

Notes

Land/water transition system- A sensor will sense the presence of water and the power will switch from the wheel motors to the propeller motors. The wheels will continue to turn for a few seconds after the detection of water to ensure the DUKW is fully submerged. 

The vehicle will be autonomous, meaning it will follow a set path until it detects water where it will change from land mode to water mode.

References 

List all references you used in your proposal. This is important, you do not want to be blamed for plagiarism. IEEE citation format is highly recommended. You can use citethisforme.com's IEEE citation generator to painlessly generate your references in this style.

[1]"Motor Transport Corps", Web.archive.org, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://web.archive.org/web/20080725043610/http://www.transchool.eustis.army.mil/Museum/DUKW.htm. [Accessed: 16- Sep- 2021]

[2]Pmengineer.com, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.pmengineer.com/articles/95528-sensaphone-water-detection-sensor#:~:text=The%20Sensaphone%20zone%20water%20detection%20sensor%20detects%20the,of%20water%20rope%20to%20cover%20a%20large%20area. [Accessed: 16- Sep- 2021

[3]"Underwater Thruster, ROV Thruster, AUV thruster", Lianinno.com, 2021. [Online]. Available: http://lianinno.com/underwater-thrusters/. [Accessed: 16- Sep- 2021]S. Thone, “Converting a Bilge

[5]"Pump to Run a Propeller,” Homebuilt Rovs. [Online]. Available: http://www.homebuiltrovs.com/howtobilgeconversion.html. [Accessed: 01-Oct-2021].