RAPID: Monitoring of Gulf Oil Spill with Gliding Robotic Fish

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The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is expected to have devastating impact on the environment, ecosystem, and local economy for many years to come. Monitoring and tracking the oil plume is critical for cleanup efforts, beach closure warnings, protection of sensitive areas, and understanding of the spill?s environmental and ecological impacts. There is an urgent need for new, efficient, and economical technology for ubiquitous monitoring of the oil spill. The proposed one-year RAPID project responds to this need and aims to develop and deploy a school of small, cost-effective, energy efficient gliding robotic fish for dynamic and continuous monitoring of coastal areas of the Gulf for detection and tracking of oil plumes, both on and under the sea surface. This grand goal will be achieved through intensive research and development efforts in three areas:- Design and development of gliding robotic fish. Through gliding mechanism design, tail-glider integration, and packaging scheme development, we will achieve the desired specifications on the maximum dive depth, travel speed, duration of continuous operation, and reliability.- Realization of autonomy, through onboard instrumentation, modeling and control of robot dynamics, and design of communication and coordination protocols. The autonomy will enable robots to work reliably in bumpy waters, avoid obstacles, and maintain network connectivity.- Demonstration and deployment in the Gulf. Gliding robotic fish equipped with compact crude oil sensors will be deployed to detect and track oil plumes in the Gulf, with technology transfer pursued at the same time for wide availability of the developed sensing platform.Intellectual Merit. With the pressing need from the ongoing Gulf crisis, this project is expected to rapidly advance gliding robotic fish-based mobile sensing technology, from the current preliminary laboratory prototypes to robust and cost-effective products that will succeed in real, harsh environments such as the Gulf of Mexico. In particular, the project will result in novel mechanism designs for small gliders, advanced control algorithms for gliding robotic fish, and valuable packaging solutions that are critical for the platform reliability. This project could usher in a new era in aquatic environmental monitoring and is thus potentially transformative.Broader Impacts. The developed technology in this RAPID project will impact the cleanup and monitoring efforts for the Gulf oil spill for many years to come, by offering flexible, distributed, dynamic sampling coverage with low overhead. It will also impact many other areas, such as monitoring of aquatic ecosystems, harbor and port security, and drinking water safety. The project will be integrated with many outreach activities that the PI has already been involved in. In particular, a related exhibit Swimming with Robotic Fish will be presented at the inaugural US Science and Engineering Festival on the National Mall in October 2010, to pique the interest of thousands of young students in science and engineering.