I am still an amature when it comes to microcontrollers, and have very little experience with C and SBasic. I have a submarine that has great moneuverability and depth, but the places I intend on taking it are tedious to drive the submarine. Its primary function will be to collect data on corries within Indiana, and the various marine life within them. Its secondary function is to act as an active fisherman, with an electroinc reel mounted on a variable x,z and y axises, (there is already a 50 lb carp I would like to fight). As such, I would like to invest in a 'insurance' system, that would allow the submarine to control when the sensors show that it has lost a signal, or has become stuck. The RC has a range of roughly 800ft in clear water, and even less for places where mud is a problem. The microcontroller I seek only needs to fill the following tasks, interpret sensor inputs from 1 sonar range, 1 accelerometer (three axises), and an array of four collision detectors (groups of five pressure sensors). To make the purpose of the submarine more beneficial, I intend to use it to collect data on water currents and temperature varriances, which do not require interpretation, but will have to be stored on a flash memory card.
To aide in its scientific purpose, I am planning on mounting a 3cm camera to the nose of the submarine, on a fixed axis, and require a method to store the video to a flash card, or telephone via bluetooth technology. (I have thought about purchasing the video transmitter and reciever, but its range seemed limited only to air transmissions, and have no idea what its range would be in water, as it is using light, not sound.) If there are any suggestions for what type of microcontroller to use, and any other aspects that were not thought of, please let me know. All equipment above has been found on the basicstamp website, basicx website and micro-cameras. The microcontroller will not have to interact with the RC beyond signal confirmation, and emergency override.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, and would help make a purposeful 'bot' to search for marine life. Thank you ahead of time.