By Chris Burmester

It's a rare event when seemingly disparate life interests combine in a project. So I was understandably amazed when, immediately after my return from the 1996 Pacific Cup San Francisco to Hawaii sailing race, I was apprised of an opportunity to author and design software to allow a Newton to wirelessly control a sailboat and her onboard systems. Having written Newton software for the past three years and raced sailboats for the past ten, I have often thought that the Newton could act as a compact interface to shipboard control systems, including navigation, weather, radio, and power, but the scope and integration of the proposed project far outstripped any of my casual musings. The vessel in question was the Microship, a sailing multihull under construction at Nomadic Research Laboratories, NRL, in Santa Clara, CA, by Steve Roberts, laboratory director and instigator of many practical experiments in "no madic technology." As summarized by NRL's Web page, "Nomadic Research Labs is devoted to the pursuit of nomadness. It was created by Steven K. Roberts, who has been a technomad for the past 13 years wandering 17,000 miles around the U.S. on various versions of a computerized recumbent bicycle known as BEHEMOTH." Both the BEHEMOTH and its maritime successor, the Microship, are "autonomous mobile information and communication platforms powered and propelled by human and solar power, linked via satellite with global information networks" (see Figure 1). Figure 1 . BEHEMOTH recumbent bicycle and Microship multihull sailboat (under construction) pictured at Nomadic Research Laboratories warehouse facility (supported by Apple Computer) in Santa Clara, CA. The planned scope of the Microship is impressive. It encapsulates an extensive network of embedded control sys tems, satellite Internet link, console Macintosh, ham radio, 1080 watts of solar panels, deployable kayaks, self-trailering capability, onboard video production, hydroponics facilities, and much more. On my first visit, Steve demonstrated the control and monitoring of the various systems using serial text string commands via Microphone terminal soft ware at 9600 baud from a Macintosh out a serial port to a "Shipnet" FORTH Hub managing a multidrop network of New Micros 68HC11 boards (see Figure 2). This network takes care of data collection, power management, turret control, security, pressure monitoring, and countless other hardware-intensive tasks. Figure 2 . Shipnet FORTH Hub and Serial Network shown with the Digital Ocean "Tarpon," a rugged wireless network Newton. Continue Overview | Digital Photography Course | Science with eMates | Spotlight Essay | Book Review | Community Networking | INET '97 | News Page One | Find It | Apple Computer, Inc. | Contact Us | Help