boat auto steering system

[daveinoz]

Could anyone point me to either circuit designs or books I could research to help me build a auto steering system for my boat (motor not sail)

 

[MikeMl]

Are you going to use GPS steering?
What do you need help with, the actuator for the autopilot, the servo, sensing the heading?

 

[daveinoz]

I have a GPS plotter to get position and course info wanted to build a system to run an linear actuator with reference pot to turn steering so need heading sensor etc

 

[Boncuk]

With GPS it should also be possible to hold true ground track. Constant heading might take you somewhere.

Also motor boat's true ground track is a result of heading and drift angle (caused by wind and water movement)

If you use heading you'll have to decide weather to use magnetic heading (referenced to magnetic north) or true heading (referenced to geographical north).

I've not been in flying business quite a while, but the magnetic variation is considerably high in the USA. There is about 34deg west variation in California.

If you use a GPS system as it is used for small type aircraft the course displayed is always a great circle course (the shortest connection between two geographical points) and the autopilot will always steer into the needle.

Using a military type autopilot you'll hit a target of DINA-4 size.

Boncuk

 

[Anafam]

do a google search for "download circuit designs ebook"

 

[MikeMl]

I have a GPS plotter to get position and course info wanted to build a system to run an linear actuator with reference pot to turn steering so need heading sensor etc

If you need a heading sensor or not depends on the update rate of your GPS.

Sounds like µcontroller which starts by parsing NEMA0183 sentences out of the GPS. There are many commercial versions of such a system.

What do you have for a steering actuator?

How good are you with programming µcontrollers?

 

[Technogumbo]

I did auto GPS navigation for a two wheel robot using the Garmin GPS15-L using two serial ports a few years ago. Code is all in Java and its based on the NMEA $GPRMC string of coordinates.

I have video and the full source code for it at my website:
GPS Navigation Robot - Projects - Techno Gumbo

One of the sources I used that is actually a GPS plane can be found here: GPS Waypoint Navigation with Fixed-Wing Platform (Magpie AP)

I hope these can help you out.