Autonomous Underwater Vehicle

Meet Douglas

The McGill Robotics Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Team presents Douglas, a completely redesigned AUV developed during the 2023-2024 scholastic year. Douglas features an entirely new mechanical body consisting of a hull, chassis, and grabber and dropper mechanism. Our electrical team has re-imagined the internal electrical architecture and has implemented a new revision of the power distribution board, custom-designed display, and actuator boards. The software team improved our core software functionalities, including a more precise navigation algorithm, development of advanced vision, and simulation algorithms.

Meet Our Team

Our dedicated team of interdisciplinary McGill students have worked tirelessly to bring Douglas to life, our Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) representing us at this year’s RoboSub competition. Spanning three different sub-divisions of Mechanical, Electrical, and Software, over 70 students bonded together to develop and design Douglas. Their commitment and excellence truly showcase the best of McGill’s student talent.

64

Members

4th in Design Presentation at RoboSub 2024

7

Leads and PMs

Building Robots For A Sustainable Future

In partnership with McGill’s Sustainability Projects Fund, McGill Robotics is developing robots to assist researchers in large-scale environmental studies, from tracking deer populations to monitoring invasive aquatic species, making comprehensive data collection and analysis more feasible.

Douglas

at a Glance

Propulsion 

  • 6 DOF (Surge, Sway, Heave, Roll, Pitch, Yaw)

  • T-200 Blue Robotics Thrusters 4.1kgf @ 16V (x8)

  • Blue Robotics Basic ESC (x8)

Hull and Chassis

  • Custom Aluminum Milled Hull

  • In-house machined and bent aluminum chassis

  • Custom Milled Blue Robotics Foam

Power System

  • Custom Power PCB

  • 2 x 14.8V 20000mAH BlueRobotics LiPo Battery 

Actuation System

  • Custom actuator PCB

  • Custom torpedo launching module

  • Custom grabber arm

  • Blue Trail Engineering SER-2010 

Safety System

  • Custom thruster kill switch (reed switch)

  • Blue Robotics BR-100433 system kill switch

  • Automatic undervoltage and overcurrent detection

Computing Module

  • NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin DevKit

  • Teensy 4.0 MCU

  • STM32 Nucleo-64

  • Python C, C++

Navigation Stack

  • SBG Elipse-N IMU

  • Water Linked A50 DVL

  • TE Connectivity MS5837-30BA Pressure sensor with custom PCB

  • ZED 2i Stereo Camera (front facing)

  • ELP USB500W02M (down facing)

  • Teledyne TC4013 Hydrophone with custom PCB 

Machine Learning

  • PyTorch

  • YOLO v8

  • OpenCV 

Software Stack

  • Robotics Operating System (ROS) Noetic

  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, JetPack 5.1.2 (L4T 35.4.1)

  • Python C, C++

  • SLAM

Mechanical Design.

Douglas features an entirely new mechanical body, designed and manufactured during the 2023-2024 scholastic year, consisting of a hull, chassis, and a grabber and dropper mechanism. Our mechanical team has rigorously tested numerous design iterations of components to ensure that Douglas can achieve the most optimal design.

Electrical Architecture.

Douglas has custom designed PCBs for regulating power, displaying system information on an LCD screen, transforming signals from the three hydrophones, and manipulating the grabber.

Software Stack.

Douglas has improved core software functionalities including a more precise navigation algorithm, development of advanced vision, and simulation algorithms.

Meet the 2024-2025 AUV Team

Community & Outreach at McGill Robotics

McGill Robotics mission is to inspire students to build robots and to build robots that inspire students. We believe it is important to give back to the community which is why we are an organization that advances the field of robotics but also nurtures a community that values sustainability, collaboration, and education.

Our Partners: