Bluefin Robotics was born in 1989 in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Laboratory, well recognized as one of the first to pioneer the AUV. In 1997, Bluefin branched off and became a standalone company.

Since branching off from MIT, Bluefin has built a reputation for its Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). AUVs are completely automatic vehicles that navigate the seabed to collect data and images. Using advanced sonar, manometers and sensors, AUVs capture important information in areas unsuitable for human exploration.

Most AUVs are tubular in shape and are categorized based on diameter. The vehicles are completely autonomous, navigating and collecting data without operator intervention. Once at sea, an AUV will journey to the bottom of the ocean and use a range of advanced sonar equipment and sensors to gather images and data. AUVs are responsible for expensive ocean floor surveys for offshore oil companies as well as dangerous battle fleet experiments for the military.

The tight design requirements of Bluefin’s AUVs presented challenges when coordinating electrical and mechanical designs. Bluefin’s existing sequential process of electrical to mechanical design was proving to be clumsy and fraught with design flow inefficiencies. Engineers were forced to rely on cardboard models, so they could never fully visualize their work and requirements.

Altium Designer helped change the way Bluefin worked forever, empowering their engineers to see all of the mechanical specifications of each project.

Savvy Designs for the Most Punishing Environments

An AUV is a very tight design. The vehicles must perform in extreme conditions and often experience pressures of up to 6000 pounds per square inch at depths of 4000 meters. AUV engineers design their vehicles to survive these pressures, as well as ensuring that they’re neutrally buoyant, which reduces propulsion energy requirements and increases vehicle efficiency.

In practice, this means that for every cubic inch of air added to the vehicle, an equivalent amount of weight has to be added and if left unrestrained, can lead to a large and unwieldy vehicle, so every component—PCBs included—have to fit with the ultimate precision.

With Altium Designer, engineers could easily collaborate on the design and find the delicate balance between performance, buoyancy and reliability. By harnessing the tool’s IGES format and advanced STEP files import-export function, Bluefin was able to integrate 3D mechanical software data into the Altium Designer platform.

3D Integration for Undersea Success 

True 3D integration opens up a whole new level of interdependence as accurate 3D design data flows freely between the two domains, enabling easy mCAD and eCAD co-design. Engineers can now transcend the traditional sequential design process because co-design means projects can occur parallel to each other, allowing the quick generation of extremely accurate designs.