A Note On Names - MeCO-AUV/MeCO-Documentation GitHub Wiki

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Meaning of MeCO

The name MeCO-AUV is an acronym of sorts, standing for Medium-Cost, Open Autonomous Underwater Vehicle.

  • Medium-Cost: MeCO is an upgrade to an existing framework used by the IRV-Lab called LoCO (Low-Cost AUV). MeCO has been built to holistically upgrade the LoCO platform while preserving costs where possible, thus the "Medium-Cost" title. MeCO hosts upgraded computers, upgraded power, upgraded sensor capabilities, and upgraded movement capabilities.

  • Open: MeCO's software is largely open-source, the design of the robot as well as assembly instructions are being fully released (in the wiki you are currently reading), and we intend to keep every aspect of MeCO open and available to the public as reasonably possible.

  • Autonomous: MeCO's autonomy is currently limited to untethered swimming maneuvers, diver following, and data collection, triggered by human-interaction control systems. We hope to bring MeCO even more autonomous behaviors in the future, increasing its capabilities and independence.

  • Underwater Vehicle: MeCO is a robot designed for underwater operations. The parts used should be operable down to nearly 100 meters of water depth, and we are excited to see all of the exciting places that MeCO gets to.

Ways to Write MeCO-AUV

The appropriate spelling of the name is MeCO-AUV. We often refer to the robot informally as MeCO, meco, or MECO, and these spellings may be seen through the documentation. When writing about the robot formally, please use the appropriate spelling, and refer to the robot either as MeCO-AUV or LoCO. When developing a ROS2 package for use specifically on the robot, use the naming convention meco_*. For example, a package for adding support for the use of a robotic arm could be named meco_arm or meco_<name of arm>

Past Names

MeCO was previously known during development as MiniBot and Edgebot. The initial version of the MeCO codebase used the name Minibot and mini_* package naming. If you find any stale references to these names, please submit a pull request fixing it, or submit an issue to notify us.

Watertight Enclosures

MeCO is built around 3 acrylic watertight enclosures from BlueRobotics. These are properly referred to as "enclosures" or "watertight enclosures" but are often informally referred to as "tubes".

Right vs. Left

When we refer to right and left in terms of MeCO (particularly in terms of the enclosures), we think of the directions based on a view from behind the robot.