The objective of this madness is to have a small solar powered, autonomous vessel, named the Spring AUV, traverse from the northern Spain/Portugal border to Tybee Island, Georgia without any intervention. A Google Earth map with the intermediate waypoints is presented in the picture to the left.

The vessel's Parallax Basic Stamp(s) (BS2P) will use gps data to navigate and software I have written to control all the systems.

An Iridium short burst data link will be used to relay positional information and key system parameters back to Savannah. The Iridium satellite network will link location information four times a day to Savannah, and the vessel's position will be posted to a map on this blog.

The boat is ten feet long and very narrow to insure it can only be stable upright. The boat consists of four six inch pvc tubes. It will be electrically powered by 54 solar cells provided by Suniva Corporation in Atlanta, GA, and it will be propelled across the Atlantic by a Minn-Kota saltwater trolling motors.