Autonomous Deployment

The logical endpoint of SmartPot: the cage is the vehicle. Instead of carrying pots to the fishing ground by boat, each pot propels itself from the dock, navigates to a GPS waypoint, submerges, fishes, and either surfaces for pickup or returns home under its own power.

Surface Transit

• Propulsion system selection: electric thruster, wave-powered, or hybrid
• Steering and rudder mechanism (or differential thrust with dual motors)
• GPS waypoint navigation firmware (depart dock → transit → arrive at fishing ground)
• Collision avoidance (AIS receiver, ultrasonic proximity, or camera-based)
• COLREGS compliance: navigation lights, radar reflector, AIS transponder for autonomous vessel rules

Dive and Fish

• Controlled-descent ballast system (flood chamber to sink, blow to surface)
• Transition from surface navigation mode to bottom-sitting trap mode
• Reuse existing SmartPot systems at depth: vision, classification, door control, telemetry

Recovery Options

Three tiers, from simplest to most autonomous:

Mode	How it works	Complexity
Surface and hold	Pot surfaces at fishing ground, operator picks up by skiff	Low --- just ropeless recovery with GPS
Herd mode	One powered “shepherd” ASV tows a string of surfaced pots back as a raft	Medium --- one smart vehicle, many dumb floats
Hydrofoil drone tow	Spring-loaded fins deploy on pot; drone ASV tows pot at optimal depth via standardized coupling point. Subsea towing eliminates wave-making drag. See Tether Resilience.	Medium --- drone ASV + coupling point + RFID tag per pot
Boat arm retrieval	Mechanical arm on vessel guided by base station GPS/telemetry. RFID tag for close-range ID. Same coupling interface as drone. Retrofits to existing davits.	Low --- arm on vessel, no ASV required
Self-return	Each pot navigates itself back to dock after fishing	High --- full round-trip autonomy

Power Budget

Phase	Estimated draw	Duration	Energy
Surface transit (1-2 mi)	50-100W	30-60 min	50-100Wh
Descent	5W (pump/valve)	2-5 min	~1Wh
Fishing (standard SmartPot)	80mA avg	Hours to days	Existing solar/battery
Ascent	5W (ballast blow)	2-5 min	~1Wh
Return transit	50-100W	30-60 min	50-100Wh

A 14.8V 10Ah LiPo pack (148Wh, ~400g) covers a full round-trip with margin. Combined with existing solar charging, multi-day deployments are feasible between transits.

What SmartPot Already Has

The current stack provides a surprising amount of the foundation:

• GPS navigation — Heltec Tracker with L1/L5 GNSS (surface positioning)
• LoRa command/control — bidirectional, encrypted (waypoint updates, recall commands)
• Ballast release — ropeless recovery mechanism (reused for dive/surface)
• Solar power — smart buoy solar harvesting (recharges between trips)
• Vision system — could augment surface obstacle detection during transit

What’s New

• Propulsion hardware (thruster, motor controller, waterproof seals for moving parts)
• Steering mechanism and navigation firmware
• Dynamic waterproofing (seals that survive repeated surface/submerge cycles)
• Regulatory: USCG autonomous vessel rules, COLREGS navigation light requirements
• Insurance and liability framework for unmanned surface vessels

Economics

A static SmartPot targets ~$160/unit. An autonomous drone pot would likely cost $800-2,000/unit — significantly more hardware and complexity. But the economics may still close:

• Eliminates fuel costs for deployment runs ($50-200/trip for a commercial boat)
• Eliminates boat time — the single most expensive resource in a crabbing operation
• Enables fishing grounds beyond casual day-trip range from shore
• A fleet of drone pots deploying from a dock pier is a fundamentally different business model: no boat required

Caution

This is speculative R&D, not a near-term product. It depends on completing the Hardware & Firmware track first — particularly Ropeless Recovery and Energy Independence, which provide the ballast and power systems that autonomous deployment builds on. Regulatory approval for autonomous surface vessels in commercial fishing waters is an open question.

Goal: A crabber walks to the end of a dock, taps a phone screen, and a fleet of pots deploys itself to the fishing ground, fishes the tide, and comes home full. No boat, no rope, no fuel, no empty pulls.