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Piranha: An Autonomous Water Surface Robot

A thesis submitted to the

Graduate School

of the University of Cincinnati

in partial fulfillment of the

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requirements for the degree of
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Master of Science
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in the Department of Aerospace

Engineering & Engineering Mechanics
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by

Xiahua Liu

B.S. Beijing Institute of Technology

June, 2018

Committee Chair: Ou Ma, Ph.D.

Abstract

This thesis describes the design and development work of a marine debris cleanup system - Piranha. It

is an autonomous water surface vehicle that can collect different types of garbage such as plastic bottles

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and bags. To begin with, Piranha is simple, with minimum moving parts including only two thrusters

and a lever system. Necessary sensors like IMUs and GPS on Piranha enable positioning and navigation
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functions. Besides sensors, a LoRa wireless module allows the human worker to control Piranha from a

distance. The simulation software for Piranha is discussed in chapter four with the theoretical equations and
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numerical methods. In the end, some control algorithms, including a 13 state EKF, a heading controller, and

a trajectory tracking controller, are brought up to achieve autonomy at a certain level. This report reveals
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the development cycle of Piranha, from the very simple low-level mechanical parts to the high-level robotics

system design.

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Acknowledgements

First of all, I want to thank the project founder, Michael Arens. He provided the idea and named this project.

Without him, the project would not exist.

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During the control system design, Jonathan and Krishna provided their opinions and suggestions to me.

However, it almost ended up in a fight because we could not agree with each other. As a result, I combined
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their ideas, meanwhile absorbed the advantages of different existing techniques into the final control system

design.
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Byron Castillo, currently a Mechanical Engineering student at the University of Cincinnati, finishes the

mechanical design part. Benjamin Russ is the industrial designer for the product, and he also took part in
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the mechanical design of Piranha.

In the end, I also want to thank the University of Cincinnati 1819 Innovation Hub and Ben Jones, the

Makerspace Manager. They provided the workspace for us and also funded this project.

During my two years of study at the University of Cincinnati, Prof. Ou Ma, Prof. Donghoon Kim, Prof.

Janet Dong, and Prof. Shaaban Abdallah in the College of Applied Engineering and Science had generously

shared the professional knowledge with me. This invaluable knowledge and experience helped all the work

done in this project.

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Contents

List of Figures vii

List of Tables x

1 Introduction 1
1.1 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

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1.2 Plastic harms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 Plastics on the shorelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.4 Trash collection systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4.1 Venturi Pump . .
1.4.2 Conveyor . . . .
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1.4.3 Mesh bucket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.5 Similar Robots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
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1.5.1 WasteShark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5.2 Clearbot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

2 Mechanical Design 10
2.1 Floats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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2.1.1 Float Assembly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

2.2 Thrusters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 Thruster Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

3 Electrical System 17
3.1 Power Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.1.1 MOSFET . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1.2 Thermal Estimation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.3 Switch system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.1.4 Voltage Measuring Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
3.2 Battery System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Motors (BLDC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.4 Electric Speed Controller (ESC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.5 MCU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.6 IMU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.7 Magnetometer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.8 GPS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.9 Wireless Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

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4 Simulation 34
4.1 Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.2 6 DoF State-Space Equations of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
4.3 Reference Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4.3.1 Transform Vectors from Local NED Frame to Body Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.4 Mass Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.5 Fluid Dynamical Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
4.5.1 Hydrostatic analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.5.2 Hydrodynamic analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
4.6 Numerical Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
4.6.1 Mesh Simplification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Buoyancy Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Drag & Skin Friction Estimate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Wind and Current Vectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.7 Input Mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.8 Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

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4.8.1 Drop Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.8.2 Linear Driving Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.8.3 Steering Test . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

5 Control System
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5.1 Navigation Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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5.1.1 Equation of Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
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5.1.2 Control Input . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.1.3 Mass matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.1.4 Damping Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
5.2 Extended Kalman Filter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
5.2.1 States and Observations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
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5.2.2 State Predict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

IMU Prediction Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
5.2.3 Attitude Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Body Magnetic Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2.4 Position Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
5.2.5 EKF Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
5.3 PD Controller for Yaw Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.3.1 Test Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.4 Trajectory Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.4.1 Feedback Linearization Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Circle Trajectory Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Square Trajectory Result . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

6 Conclusion 84
6.1 Future work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

A BlueRobotics Thruster T200 Data 86

B Piranha EKF SymPy Script 89

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Bibliography 93

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List of Figures

1.1 Some fishes lives with plastic wastes in water. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

1.2 Piranha rendered model, only the floats and frames are shown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Piranha during the forth pond test in July, 2021. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4 A simplified model of Venturi pump collection system. We fixed the capture net near the
dotted lines. Pink stars represent the floating trashes in water. The pressure drop along the
channel forces water to flow because of the Venturi effect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

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1.5 A Conveyor collection system illustration. The upper roller is motorized; meanwhile, the
lower roller is passive. Pink stars and the green bucket represent the trashes to be collected
and the trash container, respectively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.6 A concept model of Piranha using the conveyor collection system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.7
1.8
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On the left part, the Piranha is driving forward. On the right part, Piranha is moving backward.
Clearbot. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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2.1 A rendered model of Piranha. The white blocks represent the electrical system box and the
battery pack. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.2 Pontoon nose cone. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Pontoon body. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.4 The overall float assembly. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
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2.5 BlueRobotics T200 Thruster (Isometric View). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

2.6 BlueRobotics T200 Thruster (Back View). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.7 Two thrusters are installed at the rear of Piranha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

3.1 The electrical system overview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

3.2 The figure shows Piranha’s test module we built in 1819 Innovation Hub for testing the
software functions and electrical design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
3.3 The overall schematic of the power module. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
3.4 Power module rendered 3D view in KiCad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.5 The PCB prototype for the power board manufactured by JLCPCB. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3.6 The voltage divider circuit. J5 is supposed to connect to the analog input pin of the MCU. . 23
3.7 I took the picture at an early stage test. The battery packs on the left are glued to the box to
prevent collisions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.8 I calibrated two thrusters with a game controller. The right thruster is spinning. Meanwhile,
the left one is not moving. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.9 BlueRobotics Basic ESC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.10 Pi Pico installed on the breakout board. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.11 Adafruit TDK InvenSense ICM-20948 9-DoF IMU. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.12 Adafruit 9-DOF Orientation IMU Fusion Breakout - BNO085. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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3.13 WitMotion High-Precision RM3100 Magnetometer Sensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.14 E32-915T30D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

4.1 The mass matrix values of Piranha generated in the SOLIDWORKS Mass Properties menu. 39
4.2 Hydrostatic model of Piranha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 On the left is the original mesh generated by SOLIDWORKS, on the right is the simplified
mesh model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4.4 𝐴1 and 𝐴2 are the projected area of the upper part and the lower part on the plane 𝑃. . . . . 44
4.5 Two partially submerged cases. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.6 The offset water volume is between the two triangles. The face directions for the two
triangles are different. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
4.7 In the mesh model, the area of a triangular face equals the length of its normal vector. . . . 47
4.8 Piranha’s hydrostatic estimator flowchart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.9 Cell level dynamics, drag and skin friction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
4.10 Piranha’s hydrodynamic estimator flowchart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.11 BlueRobotics T200 Thruster input-output curve according to the lab test. . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.12 Simulation: Drop test result - Positions 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

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4.13 Simulation: Drop test result - Attitude 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
4.14 Simulation: Drop test result - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
4.15 Simulation: Drop test result - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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4.16 Simulation: Linear driving test result - Positions 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.17 Simulation: Linear driving test result - Attitude 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
4.18 Simulation: Linear driving test result - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4.19 Simulation: Linear driving test result - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
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4.20 Simulation: Steering test result - Positions 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.21 Simulation: Steering test result - Attitude 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
4.22 Simulation: Steering test result - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4.23 Simulation: Steering test result - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
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5.1 Piranha navigation model and frame. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

5.2 Thrusters’ location with respect to the mass center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
5.3 The overall EKF flowchart on Piranha. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
5.4 EKF estimated trajectory versus raw GPS data in the linear driving simulation. . . . . . . . 68
5.5 EKF estimated trajectory versus raw GPS data in the steering simulation. . . . . . . . . . . 68
5.6 Piranha PD heading controller flowchart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
5.7 Simulation: Without the PD controller - Positions 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.12 Simulation: With the PD controller - Positions 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
5.8 Simulation: Without the PD controller - Positions 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.13 Simulation: With the PD controller - Positions 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
5.9 Simulation: Without the PD controller - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.14 Simulation: With the PD controller - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
5.10 Simulation: Without the PD controller - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.15 Simulation: With the PD controller - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
5.11 Simulation: Without the PD controller - Inputs 𝑢 𝑙 , 𝑢𝑟 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.16 Simulation: With the PD controller - Inputs 𝑢 𝑙 , 𝑢𝑟 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
5.17 Piranha’s trajectory tracking feedback linearization controller flowchart. . . . . . . . . . . 75
5.18 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result, the reference is a circle
trajectory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

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5.19 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Position 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧. . . . . . 78
5.20 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Attitude 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓. . . . . . 79
5.21 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤. . . 79
5.22 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟. . . 80
5.23 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Input 𝑢 𝑙 , 𝑢𝑟 . . . . . . . . 80
5.24 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result, the reference is a square
trajectory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
5.25 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Position 𝑥, 𝑦, 𝑧. . . . . . 81
5.26 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Attitude 𝜙, 𝜃, 𝜓. . . . . . 82
5.27 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Linear Speed 𝑢, 𝑣, 𝑤. . . 82
5.28 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Angular Speed 𝑝, 𝑞, 𝑟. . . 83
5.29 Feedback linearization trajectory tracking controller test result - Input 𝑢 𝑙 , 𝑢𝑟 . . . . . . . . 83

A.1 T200 Public Performance Data 10-20V, 12 V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

A.2 T200 Public Performance Data 10-20V, 14 V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
A.3 T200 Public Performance Data 10-20V, 16 V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
A.4 T200 Public Performance Data 10-20V, 18 V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

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List of Tables

2.1 Specifications of 17" Diameter Pontoon Nose Cones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

2.2 Specifications of 17" Diameter Pontoon Nose Cones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.3 Physical Specifications of the BlueRobotics T200 Thruster . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

3.1 Technical Specifications of the Power Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3.2 Technical Specifications of TOSHIBA TK4R3E06PL (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

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3.3 Technical Specifications of BlueRobotics Lithium-ion Battery Module (14.8 𝑉, 18 𝐴ℎ) . . 23
3.4 Technical Specifications of BlueRobotics T200 Thruster (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.5 Technical Specifications of BlueRobotics Basic ESC (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.6 Electrical Specifications of Pi Pico (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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3.7 Specification of ICM-20948 (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.8 Specification of BNO-085 (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.9 Specifications of RM3100 (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.10 Specification of Adafruit Ultimate GPS (part) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
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3.11 Wireless Communication Method Comparison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.12 Specifications of E32-915T30D . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
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Chapter 1

Introduction

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The aggressive development in the industry in the past few centuries brought humankind to an unprecedented
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advanced stage. We make gas-powered cars allowing us to run faster than any animals on the earth; ships

carrying people cruise across the oceans every day, and even spacecraft to escape from Earth and Sun to
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deep space. But those brilliant achievements came with prices. One of them is the increasing number of

wastes in the marine area.

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1.1 Background

There is a giant plastic waste island called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on the earth. Its size is 1.6 million

𝑘𝑚 2 , more than twice the size of Texas (approximate 0.7 million 𝑘𝑚 2 ) [1]. This floating waste "continent"

is the outcome of the increasing amount of trash produced by industries and individuals in the past centuries

and the weak effort of collecting trash in the water.

Compared with the ocean trash problem, coastal pollution is never more severe in history. According

to a 2014 research, even in the most remote area on the earth, traces of plastic wastes were found [2]. It

means while we enjoy using plastic forks and bottles, they have surrounded our planet silently. As factories

and manufacturers increase their production, more and more plastic wastes will enter the water in the next

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few decades. Research shows there will be more plastic than fish in 2050 [3]. Figure 1.1 shows the exact

situation that plastic wastes are changing the living environment of sea creatures.

Compared with metal materials, plastic materials are superior in weight and durability and are pretty

easy to form in any shape. However, this also makes plastic the most stubborn trash on the earth. Some of

them cannot be decomposed in hundreds of years [4]. So we must take action on the marine trash collection

instead of hoping them go away one day.

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Figure 1.1: Some fishes lives with plastic wastes in water.

1.2 Plastic harms

Most of the marine wastes are made of plastics [1], as they are resistant to corrosion, oxidation, and

corruption. Plastic wastes can kill sea creatures in three main ways:

• Plastic ingestion. According to the research, fishes in the North Atlantic area ingest thousands of

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 tons of plastic wastes every year, most of which are microplastics. These plastic grains cause intestine

bleeding, which can lead sea animals to death. [5]

• Physical harm. Some sea creatures like turtles and birds do not own the ability to remove the plastic

bags wrapped around their heads, and they may die of suffocation. Another example of the physical

damage of plastics is the derelict nylon fishnet lines. It can entangle even giant animals like seals,

whales and leave them stranded.

• Block the sun light. Tiny algae in the shallow water layer rely on the sunlight to grow and reproduce.

Floating wastes block the sunlight, in turn reducing the number of algae. As a result, there is not

enough food for small sea animals, the bottom residents of the food chain. The reduction in food

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limits the overall animal population. On the other hand, fewer plants mean less oxygen. The dissolved
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oxygen in water also drops, making fishes harder to breathe.
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1.3 Plastics on the shorelines

There is research pointing out the vast majority of the plastics in the ocean end up washed, or buried under
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the shorelines, whether dry shorelines, coastal areas, or offshore areas [6]. However, because shorelines are

long and most parts are far from human habitats, the trash collection force on shorelines is significantly less

than the land. The main reason is the lack of hands and the high price of human labor.

That is why we designed Piranha. Piranha is a water surface robot that can be operated remotely by a

human worker or cruise on its own to collect floating trash near the coast. It has a highly advanced control

system built similarly to modern drone controllers, and we equipped it with customized control algorithms.

On the mechanical side, it has a straightforward design to achieve lower building costs and higher reliability.

Figure 1.2 shows a rendered model of Piranha made in SOLIDWORKS 2017. Figure 1.3 shows the

overall structure of Piranha during the fourth field test. In that test, we tried using a pulley system to lift the

collection bin so that human workers could easily dump the trash when the trash bin was full.

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Figure 1.2: Piranha rendered model, only the floats and frames are shown.
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Figure 1.3: Piranha during the forth pond test in July, 2021.

1.4 Trash collection systems

Trash collection is the core function of Piranha. While Piranha used the simplest way to collect trash, we

had several other options in the early development stage. In this section, I will introduce these different

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kinds of trash collection systems in the hope of inspiring more ideas from the readers.

1.4.1 Venturi Pump

The device shown in Figure 1.4 is a simplified model of a Venturi pump trash collection system. The

compressed air has a leftward momentum, pushing the water to flow. As a result, the trash is captured by

the water current and trapped by the net near the tube.

The advantage of this design is that there is no physical contact between the moving parts and the trash,

so the chance of being stuck by the debris is relatively low. And compressed air, on the other hand, gives

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the boat driving power, so the thrusters are not needed anymore. These advantages are essential because
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driving among floating trashes with thrusters is dangerous. Ropes, plastic bags can easily get caught by the

thrusters and stop the motor, which in the end leads to a complete power system failure.
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However, the disadvantages of this system are that the complexity of the system and the low efficiency.

The air pump needs too much power compared with the underwater propellers. A common airboat has a 3-5
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MPG fuel efficiency rating. Given by today’s battery technology, it is unrealistic to drive the airboat with

electricity instead of gasoline.

Compressed Air

Figure 1.4: A simplified model of Venturi pump collection system. We fixed the capture net near the dotted

lines. Pink stars represent the floating trashes in water. The pressure drop along the channel forces water to

flow because of the Venturi effect.

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1.4.2 Conveyor

The conveyor is the most common solution in collecting floating trashes and algae. Because if we separate

the collection part from the trash container, then the trash volume depends on the container only. And the

mechanical design is more straightforward compared with the Venturi pump solution. A simple combination

of a passive roller and a motorized roller is enough. The conveyor-based trash collection system is shown in

Figure 1.5.

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Figure 1.5: A Conveyor collection system illustration. The upper roller is motorized; meanwhile, the lower

roller is passive. Pink stars and the green bucket represent the trashes to be collected and the trash container,
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respectively.
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Figure 1.6: A concept model of Piranha using the conveyor collection system.

However, this configuration is usually seen on large-sized boats because there are too many moving parts,

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and the cost is considerably higher than other options. On Piranha, we did try the conveyor configuration as

the model shown in the Figure 1.6. However, due to the high cost and the difficulty in manufacturing, we

decided not to adopt this design at the early development stage.

1.4.3 Mesh bucket

The collection bucket is made of meshes and allows water to go through but not trashes. This collection

system is passive, meaning the boat needs to carry the bucket and drive around to collect trashes.

This solution is the simplest of all choices, and the cost is low. However, it does have several drawbacks.

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One of them is the capacity of the mesh bucket limits the total trash carried by Piranha in one run. Second,

the bucket is submerged in water, making it very hard for workers to empty the bucket at the dumpsite. Last
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by most important, because the bucket does not provide any active forces on the already captured trash, there

is no guarantee that the garbage will not come out of the bucket if the boat drives backward.
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Piranha has a simple lever system to avoid the last two issues. The lever system illustration is shown in

Figure 1.7.
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Figure 1.7: On the left part, the Piranha is driving forward. On the right part, Piranha is moving backward.

We carefully designed the lever so that it is nearly perfectly balanced in the vertical position. A minor

disturbance will change the angle of the pole. As shown in the left part of the figure, if Piranha drives

forward, the rod is vertical because of the water pressure on the lower part. The net’s mouth opens in the

vertical direction, and trash starts to flow inside the bag.

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 The right part shows the situation when Piranha drives backward. The lower part starts moving up due

to the water pressure. The mouth of the net leaves the water so that the trash cannot escape. In such a way,

the lever automatically "seals" the net when the Piranha starts driving backward or the water current is faster

than the boat and is about to bring out the trash.

1.5 Similar Robots

Some other robots can do a similar job as Piranha at the time when we designed Piranha. Almost all of them

have one of the configurations mentioned in the previous section. However, they vary in some subtle details

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when it comes to the goals and technologies behind them.

1.5.1 WasteShark
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Sponsored by the Robotics Innovation Center in Germany and the European Union, WasteShark has a very
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similar design to Piranha. They claimed WasteShark could carry 350-kilogram trash in one run. It also has

a special navigation algorithm to allow the robot to return to the dock once the bucket is full. Several water
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quality sensors on the boat can detect the water quality data, including pH, ORP, conductivity, dissolved

oxygen, turbidity, ammonium, chloride, nitrate, salinity, mV, ORP, TDS, resistivity level, and send them

back to the data center[7].

1.5.2 Clearbot

Clearbot shown in Figure 1.8 is an intelligent robot designed by a company in Hong Kong. It is very similar

to Piranha, except it used a conveyor instead of a mesh bucket. According to the description provided on

their website, Clearbot has a self-driving function and a computer and camera to identify the type of garbage

and upload the data to a cloud-based platform.

Clearbot’s primary function is collecting trash from the water, cleaning the rivers and oceans globally.

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Besides that, it can also identify a wide range of waste and material types to help the recycling companies to

classify the trashes. According to the recent updates, the developers of Clearbot are working on the swarm

algorithm for the robot.

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Figure 1.8: Clearbot.

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Chapter 2

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Mechanical Design
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This chapter includes the mechanical details of Piranha. To begin with, Piranha is a twin-body pontoon

boat. It has two floats on the left and right sides to support its weight. The only motorized parts on Piranha

are the left and right thrusters installed at the rear. In other words, Piranha is a skid steering boat. Both

thrusters provide the driving forces forward or backward, allowing Piranha to move forward and back. The

difference between the thruster outputs generates the torque required for steering.

Readers can find The overall design of Piranha in Figure 2.1.

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Figure 2.1: A rendered model of Piranha. The white blocks represent the electrical system box and the

battery pack.
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2.1 Floats

Piranha’s floating parts, including the connection frame, are sold by Silver Lake Fabrication LLC D.B.A

Tiny Pontoon Boats. The floats are made of High-Density Poly Ethylene (HDPE) with closed-cell urethane

foam filling. The connection frame is made of aluminum.

The specifications of the pontoon nose part in Figure 2.2, can be found in Table 2.1.

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 Figure 2.2: Pontoon nose cone.

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Table 2.1: Specifications of 17" Diameter Pontoon Nose Cones

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Characteristics Rating

Float width 16.5 inches

Float length 25 inches
Weight 14 lbs
Rated capacity 45 lbs

The specifications of the pontoon straight part in Figure 2.3, can be found in Table 2.2.

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Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.