This Senior Design project is focusing on the design and fabrication of a fully electric powered boat for entry into the Promoting Electric Propulsion (PEP) competition run by the American Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE). The competition is a 5-mile course in Virginia required to be completed in less than 55 minutes. Students chose to focus on unmanned vehicles although manned was an option. Both a 2-ft prototype hull and a scaled up 4-ft “full-sized” hull were designed, built, analyzed, and tested. Students focused on hull design, electric propulsion equipment, and the steering system. The hull was chosen to be a planing monohull and was designed and built by the students. Many components of the power and propulsion system were influenced by last year’s team. Students simulated the boat using Ansys Fluent and combined this data with test results to determine power requirements. The steering system included servos and focused on making sure the boat was still waterproof.

Our team collaborated with Electrical and Computer Engineering 24 on this project.