Development of Arduino Based Autonomous Navigation Platform for Water Monitoring Boat Prototype

Fishing is one of the major sources of employment in the Philippines. However, this industry is threatened by numerous fish kills in the country. It is therefore necessary to have a device that can be used to periodically monitor water quality in lakes. ROWENA is a boat that can traverse autonomously to predefined waypoints using affordable GPS and compass as navigation sensors and Arduino Mega 2560 as the main microcontroller. SD Card module was used to store navigation data. A 2-meter error between the desired and actual waypoint was evident in the navigation performance because of the inaccuracies in the navigation sensors. At this stage of the research, the platform can be used in applications that require less accuracy such as in water collection or fish feed distribution.