The Otter is a small unmanned catamaran propelled by two electrical fixed thrusters. The hull is based on the Maritime Robotics Otter, along with an interface card for thrusters, batteries and power management. Custom control hardware and software has been developed at NTNU to enable use of our own sensor and navigations system.

The goal for the vehicle is to provide a platform that can autonomously carry a hydrophone to wherever it is needed. This will enable tracking of tagged fish with a much larger precision than has been practical before, and therefore has the potential to give valuable new insights to marine biologists. On the way to reach this goal, the Otter project will have to solve multiple problems like collision avoidance, multi-vehicle autonomous coordination, covering search algorithms etc. all while operating in an unpredictable ocean environment.

This wiki is maintained by Nikolai Lauvås, Master student at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics, NTNU.