MRI: Track-1: Acquisition of marine multirobot systems for underwater monitoring and construction

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Underwater surveys provide critical information to federal, state, and local agencies charged with protecting unique underwater archeological and cultural heritage sites. The research enabled by the instruments to be acquired with this award is focused on an exploration of techniques and principles that guide the development of algorithms and computational systems for control and design of water robots to study: Underwater robotic construction or scaffolding to protect delicate ecologies; multirobot communication and coordination for monitoring; and underwater exploration and mapping. This project fosters collaboration among researchers in diverse disciplines (engineering, environmental studies, biological science, and anthropology). The instrumentation acquired will provide opportunities to students at all levels with hands-on experience in research, programming, and experiential learning, and public outreach communicate the challenges and insights derived from field experiments. The findings from experimental monitoring will most likely augment public awareness of the environmental challenges for the area. The instrumentation will enable investigators to study principles, algorithms, and systems needed to enable autonomous locomotion and manipulation in water, including gathering data about physical changes and pollutants, aiding in search-and-rescue, constructing underwater structures, and documenting underwater and cultural heritage. New challenges such as global positioning, high speed communication between robots or with a remote computer, and human access for repair pose new challenges. The investigators aim to establish a versatile computational framework to enable the precise simulation, design, optimization and planning of various physical processes related to the construction activities immersed in a fluid environment. Using more complex models, they expect to create a real-time decision framework that includes constraints and optimization criteria and can adapt to changing contexts reasoning.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.