Spent a lot of time this week cleaning up some of the lab space. When everything was offloaded from the ship, it kinda got shoved into this room. I sorted, organized, and put away some of the stuff to clear off bench space so I could actually work with others instead of being in a separate lab. Once the space was cleaned out, I set up three computer workstations. One is a general purpose computer where I or anyone else can work. Another is a computer that connects to a motor controller which then connects to a thruster. A couple of weeks ago I built several wire harnesses; they’re going to be used for this set up. The thrusters are being upgraded and are controlled in a different way than the old ones. With that, the new software needs to be tested with the thrusters. Another station is set up as a sub simulator. One computer generates fake sensor data which is then sent to another computer that reads it as real data. This can be used to both test the way the sub reads data and the way the sensors send data. We can also hook up actual sensors to the computer and verify that the sub interprets the data correctly. This is something I will be working on next week with testing the Doppler for navigation.
