Hi, Excuse me if the question has already been answered, I didn't have the time yet to consider all of the messages of the forum yet. I'm also new to this so I hope my question won't be stupid or anything I've seen, like most people I guess, some products like the rapsberry being sold at a really nice price, so my question is: Would it be possible, in all ways (money, reliability, weigth etc...) to use that kind of system, to be able to optimize the command capacities. Like (maybe I dream a bit) having of targetting system. we are now able to get tiny cameras and recognision on kid toys. Can we get it on an RC warship? Like the boat could measure the distance and shoot at the rigth point? Sounds quit nice to me
There's a general rule of thumb I apply to any proposed "advancment". Would I want it used against my ship?
When one day I get a ship going, I'd like to consider having a compass/gyro system to keep the ship on course, and a system to coordinate turret direction -- i.e. my controls are target direction and range. Incidentally, I don't think the Raspberry Pi is a particularly good choice for this sort of thing -- its real claim to fame is that it has a very capable graphics/video decoder in its 'system on a chip', which doesn't really help with this application. I think a simple AVR would have enough grunt for most maritime applications, and better I/O, with lower power consumption and cost.
From a technical standpoint, it is entirely possible to make a fully autonomous battleship that can navigate the pond, recognize other objects on the water, identify targets and teammates, engage tactically, and aim and fire the guns, with no human input other than "go". *however* there are a number of reasons why we don't do that. 1) the difficulty involved. Such a project would take a team of college students at least a year to complete, and a budget measured in at least multiple thousands of dollars. Even seemingly simple tasks like detecting targets and measuring the range to said targets is made massively more complex by the addition of water. The ship rocks and rolls, reflections off the water (both sound and light) make many false signals, and the targets themselves must be distinguished from bushes, shoreline, ducks, etc. It's possible to compensate for all that, but it's a very complex and difficult task for even the best of us. 2) the gameplay effects. An autonomous ship (or even a semi-autonomous ship that can aim or at least correct elevation) would have profound effects on gameplay. Something as simple as a reliable automatic gun-depression system would render all prior warships obsolete at a stroke. The ability to land every shot on the target's waterline would be devastating. If you go all the way to fully autonomous, the game will shift from being a "battler's game" that emphasizes skipper skill and reliability to being a "builder's game" that emphasizes technology and builder's ingenuity. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that the hobby probably isn't ready for it yet. 3) the hobby effects. Let's face it, adding expensive, complex automatic systems to a warship is complex and difficult. And our hobby is complex and difficult enough for most players. To a new member just getting started, building your first ship is already an intimidating wall to climb. If automatic systems are introduced, they will just make that wall even higher, and the number of new members joining the hobby will decline. Our hobby is very slowly growing, and I don't want to do anything to upset that growth. I DO intend to, eventually, build a fully autonomous Yamato-class battleship for Big Gun, and challenge my local club the WWCC with it. I believe it would be a fascinating challenge to build the ship, test it, program it, and make all systems function correctly. Once it's ready, however, I'll push the start button and then stand right alongside my fellow club members, with my own dreadnought SMS Prinz Eugen leading the charge against the maurading juggernaut. It may take years of struggle! Dozens of minions! hundreds of sparky mad-scientist experiments! But this I promise: No matter what the cost, on the gloriousl day, I will post an epic video of the battle of Space Battleship Yamato VS the WWCC.
I think a set of autonomous convoy ships would be a good project for someone interested in automating ships, and not necessarily that hard or too expensive. Onboard sensors coupled with IR beacons at home and forward bases would be relatively simple to implement. Ron Hunt
