NRI: Operating in the Abyss: Bringing Together Humans and Bio-Inpsired Autonomous Vehicles for Maritime Applications

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The ocean covers about two-thirds of the planet's surface, drives weather, regulates temperature, produces about half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, absorbs most carbons from the atmosphere, and ultimately supports all living organisms on Earth. Furthermore, the ocean has been essential to humans for commerce, transport, food, and sustenance. Nevertheless, 95% of the ocean remains unexplored, and the long term impact of natural or man-made changes on the health of the planet and its occupants are far from understood. This investigation is aimed at addressing some of the challenges in the design and operation of a sustained networked robotic system for monitoring and exploring the vast ocean in cooperation with or in replacement for humans. This project proposes research that will fill the knowledge gap in underwater hybrid robotics, effective navigation and coordination of a team of robots with significant constraints and limited resources, and path planning for a team of robots in harsh mediums and with restricted resources.The proposed hybrid robotic system takes inspiration from marine animals, with a healthy balance between migratory capabilities and accurate maneuvering in proximity of obstacles. The robot will be outfitted with a distributed pressure and surface velocity sensors to provide total hydrodynamic forces for vehicle control and vortex street identification for obstacle detection. Novel underwater robotic actuators are also proposed and will be employed in the design and operation of a hybrid class of underwater robot with efficient high speed cruising and precise low speed maneuvering capabilities required in many marine applications. These new sensing and actuation capabilities facilitate safe co-operation of robots with humans in the ocean and in proximity of obstacles, humans, and other robots. Availability of such new sensory information and actuation capabilities will also result in a paradigm shift in our approach to vehicle control, path planning, and cooperation. To this end new algorithms will be developed and tested in simulations and experiments in a well-equipped underwater laboratory. The system capability to maximize its contribution as human assistants or replacements in existing and emerging marine applications will be explored.