SAVER (Surface Autonomous Vehicle for Emergency Rescue)

This document serves to introduce the design team and their competition challenge, as well as to detail the progress of the project. The design challenge was presented by NASA Micro-g NExT’s SAVER (Surface Autonomous Vehicle for Emergency Rescue) competition; the goal was to design a self-driving water vehicle capable of delivering supplies to Orion astronauts separated from the rest of their crew in the case of a maritime emergency. However, the team was not selected to go forward in this competition and thus decided to scale down the size of the SAVER vehicle in order to shift the focus of the project toward testing and refining the technologies necessary for a successful future team. The team first performed research on the problem, outlining and refining a preliminary design through ideation and initial analysis. Additionally, since the Critical Design Review and the downsizing of the project, the team verified the design and carried through with final manufacturing, assembly, and testing. Post Critical Design Review, teams SAVER 1 and SAVER 2 parted ways to produce individual reports for the Final Design Review. The main body of this report will detail the SAVER 1 team’s overall design processes, effectively justifying the chosen design and providing confidence in the team’s final product. Furthermore, the team’s steps completed for manufacturing, testing, and verification of SAVER are also included in this report. Finally, project management timelines detail the team’s process for effective time management that has ensured that the project is successful and fulfills all of the requirements laid out by the class