January 16, 2000
Cruise Log: Doroado 2000 A
Chief Scientist: Jim Bellingham



January 16, 2000

0600
McArthur departs San Francisco


After passing under Golden Gate Bridge, sea picks up and ship motion
becomes quite lively.  Working impossible for everyone but Tom O'Reilly!
Fortunately, preparations yesterday were quite complete.

Equipment secured well, except for one monitor.

Science Party:
Jim Bellingham (Chief Scientist)
Bill Kirkwood
Rob McEwen
Tom O'Reilly
Aaron Marsh
Drew Gashler
John Reiffel
Justin Manley

Justin met the ship in Seattle and rode down with her.  Weather en route
was apparently quite bad.


1530

Arrive off Monterey We pull in very close to harbor and anchor.  We are
well sheltered from the swells here and conditions are pleasant.

Spend the evening making sure that tracking is working as are other
systems.  There appears to be some communication/power problem with the
vehicle which Drew and Aaron et al are working on.


January 17, 2000

0730
Start operations. Small boat in water by ~ 0745.  Light rain. Seas flat. Foggy.
N36(  36'.460  W121(  52'.390 at anchor
0805
AUV in water

0820

AUV 1st mission run: 2000.017.00
mis0.cfg
-we pause and countdown prior to mission start
-behaviors which initiate aborts should write a message to the screen/syslog
-need to complete salinity
-time axis screwed up on temp-cond plot
-vehicle speed computed too high (5 m/s)
resulting DR also too big

Aside from minor problems noted above, mission ran well.
This was a 40s run on the surface to test mission timer...

0845

2nd mission run: 2000.017.01
mis1.cfg

Ran well. Still on surface.  Tried to run mis1a.cfg, but vehicle choked on
initialization - windows apparently added all to mission file...

Mis1a.cfg has the vehicle run on the surface for 30s, then attempt to dive to 2m.

Note: vehicle has had a tow float on it for all the runs so far.  We see
'pitch down' anomalies in the earlier runs, with coincident prop RPM speed
ups, which we interpret as the tow float pulling the tail up and bringing
the prop out of the water.

0933

Ran mis1a.cfg (2000.017.03). Vehicle did not make it down. However, Justin,
who is in the small boat, says it was "trying mighty hard".

0941
Removed tow float. Ran next mission. Ran 2000.017.04 (Mis1a.cfg again)

Visual indications are that the mission ran well - at least he vehicle submerged.

Reviewing the mission file, we see that vehicle did submerge, but was
taking a long time to approach 2m depth.  After the 90s mission, it still
had not reached 2m.

1003
Ran mis2.cfg 2000.17.05

This mission tested launch behavior. Backdown seemed to run well.  The 3m
cutoff we used seems too deep (perhaps back to 2m).

Rob notices that heading control loop is saturating the integral term at
5 deg.  Vehicle heading is consistently a little high in heading.  This
appears to be due to a biased output from the yaw rate sensor.

1030
Ran mis2a.cfg 200.17.06

This mission is testing the depth envelope.

The control activity plot in the depth plot window shows an anomalously
high derivative term (>200!). There is a mystery here.

1040
Running mis2b.cfg 200.017.08

Testing depth abort behavior.

Seeing an occasional -999m altimeter reading.  John and Aaron mystified by this.

Mission proved functionality of abort depth - mission aborted at correct depth.

1055
Running mis3.cfg 2000.017.09

Testing altimeter hold-off portion of depth envelope.
1110

Vehicle back on board.

Looking at data from 2000.017.09: depth/altimeter envelope appeared to work.

Note: We presently apply a correction to the altimeter to account for
pitch.  It seems that the beam width of the altimeter is large enough that
this correction is giving us erroneous altitudes.  They are far too small
on diving, when the pitch angle is large.

1332
Made changes to supervisor to launch only the crossbow driver "crossbow".

Verified supervisor runs crossbow driver and verified crossbow.log is valid and legible

New software "Ver1_4"
1355
AUV back in water

Starting mis4.cfg...initialization of crossbow failed.

Can't figure out why crossbow isn't working.  To keep the ball rolling,
Aaron has commented out the code in the supervisor which starts up the
crossbow, and recompiled.  We will run without the supervisor.

1410
Ran mis4.cfg/2000.017.19

Mission appeared to work well -was testing ascend behavior.
1422
Ran mis4.cfg/2000.017.20

Test of time-out of launch behavior (timeout = false)

There do appear to be significant latencies on the state transitions of
behaviors.  For example, ascend does not shut down for ~ half a second
after it exceeds its cut-off depth.

1430
Ran mis4b.cfg :2000.017.21

Test of time-out of launch behavior (timeout = true). Worked.
1435
Started mis7a.cfg...

Aaron killed vehicle while it was still on the surface since Justin (who is
in the small boat) said the vehicle was not diving.  We checked and
realized that used too slow a speed for the vehicle to back down. (1.0 m/s
commanded on previous missions)

1444
Mis7a.cfg started, 2000.017.23

Multiple setpoint (that is, two setpoints in one setpoint behavior)

Msetpoint worked well. Yaw rate seems to converge on zero as run
proceeds. Perhaps we are seeing startup transients causing the non-zero yaw
rate when the vehicle heading is more-or-less constant.

1502

Mis6a.cfg started: 2000.017.24 This is an out and back with depth changes
in the middle of both the out and back legs. Getting data so we can analyze
dynamic control performance.

Mission ran well. Yaw-rate offset seems to decay away as mission
progresses.  However, there are substantial yaw oscillations that appear to
be larger going out than back (a reciprocal heading).

1545
Mis7b.cfg started. 2000.017.25

This mission was running a big box w N-S and E-W legs to see if the roll
oscillation is introducing any acceleration errors in the compass.  This
was a 20 min. mission.

1606
Mis8a.cfg started. 2000.018.00

Testing descend - depth terminated.

1610
Mis8b.cfg/2000.018.01
Altitude terminated descend.

Note: temperature and conductivity do not look right.
1620
AUV back on board.


January 18, 2000

0730

Small boat in water.  Wind picking up.  From the SE, occasional gusts to 34
kts according to the skipper.  Skies clearing, low fast moving clouds.  We
are sheltered well, and forecast is for 10-15 kts winds.  So, operations
proceed.

Some delay putting AUV in water while we check out new software and do
revision control housekeeping.

Justin in small boat again.
0845

Ran mis8a.cfg. Descend followed by setpoint at different heading and depth.
Behavior performance nominal, some dynamic overshoot.  CTD changes not yet
effective (latest changes from last night not checked in - Tom) Data file :
2000.018.10

0905

Ran mis8b.cfg.  Same as above except descend set to terminate @ 15m
altitude.  Performance nominal.  Altitude transient @ end of backdown.
Data file: 2000.018.11

0919
Ran mis8c.cfg

Same as 8b except added a setpoint b/w launch and descend @ 200( T.  Odd
date - cannot determine if vehicle dove - Matlab programs not displaying as
expected.  Data: _.18.12

0942
Ran mis9a.cfg

4 min. setpoint @ 240, yo-yo 3-7m CTD data array renamed.  May be some
dynamic control issues as mdepth lags and undershoots cmd-depth.  Date:
_.18.13

1000

Ran mis11a.cfg
Same as 9a but altitude (12m) terminated yo-yo.
Data: _.018.15

1009
Ran transit1.cfg
Vehicle failed to dive after launch.
Data: _.018.16
1014
Ran transit1.cfg
Changed min altitude
Data:_.018.17

Following are dynamic tests for Jim and Rob
1029
Ran dynamic 20.cfg
2 min setpoint to 5 m
2 min setrudder, rudder angle of 020
Vehicle failed to dive -  Aaron made modifications in Behavior
Setrudder.h.cc
Data:_.018.18
1045
Dynamic 20.cfg
Data:_.018.19
Small gap noticed in cmd-depth b/w setpoint and setrudder behaviors
1100
Ran dynamic10.cfg
Setpoint @ 5m followed by 10( setrudder
Data: _.18.20 OK
1105
Failure-Tom's code (dynamic5.cfg) didn't parse out ^M's
Data: 18.21
1109
Ran dynamic5.cfg
Data 18.22
Same as above but w/5( rudder
1115
Checking crossbow data from last mission

Note: need to go thru vehicle tasks and identify parameters which should be
config files.

1130
Run 2000.018.23 complete
       dynamic0.cfg
Getting set to recover to deck.
1135
Sunny, winds moderating (~ 14kts @ 225( T).  Very pleasant out.
1145
AUV back on deck

Doing a series of checks and fixes:
a) setting the CTD pump turn-on so it turns on (presently at 5000, needs to be at 3500)
b) checking Crossbow data against KVH.
General observations:
- KVH looks like it lags Crossbow by a few tenths of a second
- KVH noisier on pitch & roll, but especially on yaw (5( oscillations in
yaw on KVH barely show up on Crossbow).
- KVH has apparent overshoots (as compared to Crossbow) on large pitch excursions.
Note: Crossbow logged @ 20 Hz
c) fixing mission parser so it takes weird characters from windows editors...
d) Rob fixing prop speed
e) Fixing some matlab routines
f) There is a "domain error" occurring during initialization associated
with a "pow" call that needs to be isolated and fixed.
g) Check results of sett setrudder missions.

Vehicle back in water ~ 1445-1500
Bill Kirkwood now out in small boat.

1506
Run dynamic2a.cfg ® 2000.018.27
(has vehicle w ( 2( set rudder)
1528
Run mis9a.cfg ® 2000.018.28
Yo-yo test to confirm changes to dynamic control.
1542
Run gps1.cfg ® 2000.018.29
Test of GPS acquisition w 2 min on surface
GPS acquired easily in 2 min at surface at end of mission.
Justin has winphrog working!!!!
Using ships compass input and generic device in winphrog...
1555
gps2.cfg ® 2000.018.30
Same as the previous .cfg, except this one returns, that is, out & back.
1605
FAILED!  PSA got to a bad return just after the mission started

1611
Running gps2.cfg
Data: 2000.019.01
Re-run of previous mission
psa916 OK

Tom says: Navigation gives device drivers a 20-second "grace period" to
initialize, etc. after which, if a driver returns bad data (return v91-1),
navigation aborts.

1645
AUV back onboard
Reviewing data, we discover some interesting things:

1) Parosci depth reading being updated ~0.4s intervals instead of 0.2s.
This might be because of the fact that we are running the Crossbow today,
but not yesterday...yesterday the parosci update rate was a little closer
to 0.2s.

2) Conductivity frequency is only taking on two values.

3) Rate sensors of both KVH and Crossbow relatively noisy.  Could this be
because of vibration in the sphere (there is a cooling fan & a hard-drive).
Note that the Crossbow when subsampled at 5 Hz to be comparable to the KVH,
looks the same.  However, on looking at he 25 Hz Crossbow data, we see that
the noise is fairly "white".  This means we could average the Crossbow data
and get a smoother rate measurement (possibly by up to a factor of two).

4) Bias of KVH on startup is very noticeable when compared to the Crossbow.
KVH bias dies out as mission progresses.  Is this because of some filtering
done in the KVH.  The set-rudder mission shows a very illuminating feature:
the Crossbow shoes the rate stabilizing fairly rapidly.  The KVH shows the
rate decaying towards zero!  Maybe the same filtering which is set up to
remove biases is removing real rates as well!

January 19, 2000


AUV in water sometime about 0805.  Wind ~3 kts @ 40(T.  Seas are very
calm. Slight haze.

Testing crossbow
Tested heading control on __???__.
Extended ste heading control mission.

Ran first submerged mission
Setpoint 0m followed by setpoint @ 3m
(
extended this mission 2 minute submerged run
pitch slightly biased negative ~ 1.5(
roll biased positive ~ 3.5(
0853
Normal launch, then 2 min setpoint 020/3m x bow4.cfg ®
Failed to load mission setpoint twice data will be in
(
pow error ® power function gags on negative speed
will have to fix at noon.

Change next mission to be outback 2min each leg @ 3m.

Confirm dynamics @ heading change

Xbow5.cfg ® 2000.019.13
CTD aborted mission.

Start @ 0905/data in 2000.019.14

Had an abort ~165 seconds due to bad psa916 data.  Reran mission, data in
2000.019.15 starts @ 0915.

Next ® confirmed/tested vehicle dynamics @ setup function in cmdDepth.
Added ascend behavior.


2 min @ 3m
2 min @ 5m
ascend
}
bearing 200

2000.019.16
Failed again due to psa916
Decided to recover to fix
1030
Vehicle on deck
1040
Vehicle on network
1210
Vehicle back in water
First dive. Backdown launch & setpoint
   2min@050, 3m
to test launch behavior

Fixed over lunch
- Navigation handling of pas916 error
- Power domain error on negative thruster current

2000.019.20 - abort. _??_ server already running. Perhaps left behind by _??_


Start @ 1220 pst/ 2000.019.21
Successful launch

Backdown to 2m
2 min @ 050, 3m

slight bubble on ascent
noted pitch overshoot on descend
1225
xbow7.cfg
launch. 3m setpoint for 2 min
5m setpoint for 2 min
ascend
start @ 1229 PST
data in 2000.019.22
(
mission terminated due to CTD
(
reran @ 1233
data in 2000.019.23

- mission planning error put vehicle under ship - can't tell if contact was
made but crossbow data may show it




120s
120s
120s
xbow8.cfg

launch
descend @ 20(
setpoint
ascend


}




5m
1247
Reran xbow7.cfrg

Possible transients due to ship __??__ corrupted performance data @ step
for commanded depth.

1248
Data in 2000.019.24
1300
Data in 2000.019.25

Ran xbow8.cfg
launch
120s    descend @ 20(
120s    setpoint
120s    ascend

}





@030


failed in CTD?
1310
Data in 2000.019.25

Ran xbow8.cfg
Another abort at ascend ~2minutes
Mission completed - only required ~2 min
1320
Poor RF contact off port bow.  Vehicle towed to stern.
1340
Preparing dynamic controls tests for jim
Fixed pitch descent to depth ® setpoint ®fixed pitch ascend
Initial runs to 12m @030 w/2 min setpoint

Goal - two identical runs, doubling pitch derivative gain between runs
1344
Launch of jim1.cfg
2000.019.27 - aborted on mission syntax error, missing semicolons
1347
Second launch of jim1.cfg ® 2000.019.30
Increase pitch loop derivative term (kpitched) from 2.0 to 6.0. Otherwise identical to mission 28

With derivative term cranked up, we get substantial actuator oscillation,
and significant pitch oscillation.  Presumably this is because of the
latency in the read sensor ® process ® command actuator loop.  This
suggests some interesting experiments: Intentionally introduce latencies in
the actuator command.

1412
Performing getgps test
Descend - setpoint -ascend for ~ 3 min
Then getgps for 10 hits or 2 min.
1600

Vehicle recovery a little while ago (1500?).  Tailcone not responding.  On
recovering, we find that there has apparently been a leak in a sphere.
There is a little water pooled at the bottom of the sphere and considerable
moisture.  One of the connectors on the bottom of the sphere (the thruster
board?) has been heavily corroded, and one of the wires in no longer
attached.

Looks fixable. But we decide to quit while we are ahead!

Start packing up the O-lab.

General Observations:
1) need to nail timing on 1/0
2) need to nail latencies of sensors & actuators

