Baby Dragon
General Overview
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Meet Baby Dragon! Desert WAVE's third AUV. She was designed from a NURC (National Underwater Robotics) Kit in 2024. Her original capabilities include using a game pad, pressure sensor and flash light. Desert WAVE upgraded her capabilties to run missions with Dragon such as IVC (Inter-Vehicle Communicaton) and Navigating through the gate.
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The content on this page documents the individual designs that were implemented, as well as, the testing conducted throughout the development process which upgraded Baby Dragon.
Mechanical

Magnetic Switch
The team engineered a magnetic switch to activate the AUV Mission Switch on Baby Dragon during competition. This contactless system not only ensures a waterproof and reliable power-up but also triggers a pre-coded mission sequence stored on the programmed Teensy microcontroller, enabling smooth and immediate autonomous operation.
Kill Switch
Desert WAVE engineered a custom kill switch for Baby Dragon. This kill switch was designed to immediately power down the AUV’s thrusters, effectively stopping all motion. It acts as a critical failsafe during testing and competition, preventing unintended movement or potential collisions with divers, allowing for rapid manual or remote shutdown in emergency scenarios—prioritizing both safety and system reliability.


AUV Door Upgrade
During Pool Testing, it was found that opening and closing the AUV door to upload code poses a risk to the board and components.
Line-Up Guide
Initial values from the IMU is dependent on the line-up values when turning on the mission switch.

Electrical
NURC Kit Board

Mainboard
The printed circuit board was designed from a NURC Kit. The team constructed and changed aspects of the board to compete as an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle in Robosub with Dragon.

Communication LED
The LED strip was implemented for visual confirmation of Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) between Dragon and Baby Dragon. The LEDs can be used for AUV status underwater. Similar to Dragon and Phoenix, Baby Dragon has a "purring mode".
Software Testing

Water-Linked Modem
To enable Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC), Desert WAVE integrated Water-Linked Modems into their autonomous underwater system. The modem was mounted on their vehicle Baby Dragon and interfaced with a Teensy microcontroller, which handled sending and receiving data. This setup allowed the team to establish reliable underwater communication between vehicles, supporting coordinated missions and shared sensor data.
