I am currently working on designing and manufacturing the frame for Cornell University Autonomous Underwater Vehicle’s main competition vehicle for RoboSub 2019, Odysseus. Our frames are the backbone of the vehicle’s structure, and by defining the final placement of enclosures and sensors they play a large role in determining how it interacts with its environment. In many ways the frame is also a massive juggling act of a project, since it is the focal point of different subteams’ needs and desires about the layout of the vehicle, and it interfaces with other mechanical projects which are being designed at the same time (or with a month delay for our freshmen’s projects) so it must constantly change to adapt to these changes.

Additionally, due to a large reduction in overall vehicle size the year before Odysseus, there is now significantly less space (relative to the main enclosure) to mount all of our external components while leaving space for trim foam, serviceability, and unforeseen additions later in the year. To address these issues the design for Odysseus’ frame began with defining placement for specific critical sensor and budgeting a large amount of space in logical locations for freshman projects. From there the design process became a more straightforward packing optimization problem since the driving requirements were within the mechanical subteam’s scope (in terms of size, trim, and serviceability).

With numerous width changes to fit different components in different sections as well as new 3D printed mounting for the battery pods to change the direction which they mount/unmount, the final design packaged Odysseus into a small form factor while retaining ease of trimming the vehicle and servicing enclosures. The design did, however, come at a cost of more individual frame pieces, which would normally lead to an increase in manufacturing time and weight. To address this, I worked with DATRON Dynamics West for a second year as a manufacturing sponsor, allowing for the frame pieces members to get a T-profile treatment to reduce weight as well as offloading the burden of adding countless holes to the faces of the plates. 

Detailed documentation of Odysseus’ Frame’s design is available here.