Date of Award

4-29-2026

Degree Type

Capstone Project

First Advisor

Professor Bahram Nassersharif

Abstract

The contents of this report contain the details of the 2025-2026 school year regarding team 14’s capstone project about building an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV) using sound detection. At the beginning of this project it was decided that the project goals would be updated. In previous years the students had to use sound to follow a path and drop a payload along that path in the pool. Now this has been changed so that the team now knows the path and drop location beforehand. This removes the need for sonar and sound detection. This makes the project easier and more simple because when this project was attempted last year neither group was able to reach the goal. The main objectives of this project are to have a UUV with the following specifications: Maximum Diameter: 1 ft, Minimum Depth in water: 1 ft, UUV completed task in under 5 minutes, UUV does not hit the wall of the pool, UUV completes the set path without deviation.

So far for this project it has gone through a few designs and the final design choice was to have a Triple Thruster UUV with rear mounted thruster on servo motor for forward/directional travel and internal vertical thrusters for buoyancy. This setup allows for the most flexibility with movement for the UUV. As for the drop mechanism it was decided to hold the payload vertically in the center of the UUV with a pin release mechanism. Dropping the payload straight down allows for the most accuracy when dropping the payload. All of these objectives were met. The UUV was able to move using its rear, servo mounted, thruster forward and backward while also making accurate turns using an internal measurement unit (IMU). It was also able to control its depth using a depth sensor and the vertical thrusters to stay at least 1ft under the water at all times. This was all done while also staying within the 1ft diameter constraint.

While everything was working separately, on the day of the competition there were some troubles with the servo motors and the depth control. The UUV was still able to perform well against roger williams university and their UUV however due to the mishaps on competition day the team was unable to bring home the win. Our performance still made the sponsors very happy and they said this was the best year with the best performers for the competition to date.

Comments

Team Name: Team 14

Company Sponsor: Naval Undersea Warfare Center (NUWC)

Sponsor Representative: Matt Cunha

Document Reference: URI-MCE-2026-FDR-014

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