IRES Track 1: RUI: Monitoring of Marine Life Coastal Habitats via Autonomous Robot Systems

了解鲨鱼、海龟和其他海洋生物的运动行为对维护我们的自然海岸资源至关重要。在过去的几十年里，跟踪这些海洋生物的技术已经成熟到可以跟踪鱼类和鲨鱼数月至数年，并以米级精度解决其地理位置。为了实现对水生物种的这种跟踪，鲨鱼和其他鱼类通常被标记有声学发射器，该声学发射器可以被放置在沿海环境中的一组接收器跟踪。最近，这些声学接收器已被连接到自主水下航行器（AUV），水下机器人可以被编程为自主跟踪正在跟踪的海洋动物，同时测量感兴趣的动物周围的海洋学条件。该IRES Track I奖支持来自Harvey Mudd学院和加州州立大学长滩的18名美国学生参与研究，以扩展AUV技术的开发，并将其应用于海洋生物监测研究。学生将有助于积极跟踪护士鲨鱼和海龟在其栖息地位于哥斯达黎加的巴伊亚圣埃莱纳。这个地点不仅是测试和开发此类采样所需的机器人技术的理想场所，而且还可以产生有关这些相关物种在复杂沿海栖息地内运动行为的新数据。这项工作的贡献包括开发新的机器人跟踪技术，可应用于海洋公共安全监测等其他应用，新的数据将增加我们对鲨鱼和海龟如何沿沿着迁移的了解，并培训一批不同的美国学生进行研究和跨文化合作。这项工作的一个好处是，参与的学生在他们的研究领域之外获得了广泛的专业培训，但仍然与研究进展高度相关。这些活动包括与当地社区的一些成员，包括非政府组织领导人、学童、渔民和来自哥斯达黎加的研究人员进行高度接触的机会。这项工作的具体贡献是高度跨学科的，包括：（1）鲨鱼和海龟栖息地绘图，（2）多AUV单收发器系统开发，（3）新型声学标签开发，以及（4）在哥斯达黎加进行的护士鲨和海龟跟踪实验。为了促进这项研究，PI正在运行一个为期3年的队列为基础的计划，每个队列由3个哈维穆德学院工程/计算机科学的学生，3个CSU长滩生物学的学生，和3个哥斯达黎加大学生物学的学生。每年夏天，一批新的HMC和CSULB学生前往哥斯达黎加，与东道主马里奥·埃斯皮诺萨博士和迈科·海德迈耶以及他们来自加州大学河滨分校的学生一起工作长达6周。这批人接受了机器人技术和东道国文化的培训。与此奖项相关的计划的独特之处在于：1）专注于培训LatinX学生，2）利用学生学术背景的跨学科方面。这项研究的智力价值包括对水下机器人和海洋生物学的贡献。多AUV系统，使用单个水听器接收器的海洋生物本身的主动跟踪的发展产生新的目标函数配方，新的算法来优化这样的目标函数，新的方法来分散的算法在多个AUV，和新的系统集成方法。关于这对海洋生物学的贡献：护士鲨和海龟的精细运动模式在很大程度上是未知的。此外，它们的栖息地从未被绘制过地图，因为哥斯达黎加国家很少获得这种技术。结合这两个新的数据集，运动模式和栖息地地图，有助于回答一些最基本的，但没有回答的问题，这些物种如何使用他们的栖息地。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准的支持。

Understanding the motion behaviors of sharks, turtles and other marine life is essential for maintaining our natural coastal resources. Over the past decades, technology for tracking such marine life has matured to the point where fish and sharks can be tracked for months to years and their geo-positions resolved with meter level accuracy. To accomplish such tracking for aquatic species, sharks and other fish are often tagged with acoustic transmitters that can be tracked with a group of receivers placed in coastal environments. More recently, these acoustic receivers have been attached to Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs), underwater robots that can be programmed to autonomously follow the marine animal being tracked, while simultaneously measuring oceanographic conditions surrounding the animal of interest. This IRES Track I award supports 18 U.S. students from Harvey Mudd College and California State University Long Beach to participate in research to extend the development of AUV technology, and apply it to a marine life monitoring study. Students will contribute to the active tracking of nurse sharks and sea turtles within their habitat located in Bahia Santa Elena, Costa Rica. This location is ideal to not only test and develop robotics technology that is required for such sampling, but also to produce new data regarding the motion behaviors of these relevant species within complex coastal habitats. The contributions of this work includes development of new robot tracking technology that can be applied to other applications like marine public safety surveillance, new data that will increase our understanding of how sharks and sea turtles migrate along the coast, and training a diverse group of U.S. students for research and cross-cultural collaboration. A benefit of this work is that the students involved gain extensive professional training in topics outside their field of study, but still highly relevant for research progress. These activities include opportunities for high engagement with several members of the local community including NGO leaders, school children, fishers, and researchers from Costa Rica. The specific contributions of this work are highly interdisciplinary and include 1) shark and turtle habitat mapping, 2) multi-AUV-single-transceiver system development, 3) novel acoustic tag development, and 4) nurse shark and sea turtle tracking experiments in Costa Rica. To facilitate this research, the PIs are running a 3-year cohort-based program, with each cohort consisting of 3 Harvey Mudd College engineering/cs students, 3 CSU Long Beach biology students, and 3 University of Costa Rica biology students. Each summer a new cohort of HMC and CSULB students travels to Costa Rica for up to 6 weeks to work with hosts Dr. Mario Espinoza and Maike Heidemeyer, as well as their students from UCR. The cohort is trained in both robotics and the culture of the host country. Unique to the program associated with this award is 1) a focus on training LatinX students, and 2) leveraging interdisciplinary aspects of the students' academic backgrouds in the cohorts. The intellectual merit of this research includes contributions to both underwater robotics and marine biology. The development of a multi-AUV system that uses single hydrophone receivers for active tracking of marine life itself generates new objective function formulations, new algorithms to optimize such objective functions, new approaches to decentralize the algorithms across multiple AUVs, and new methods of systems integration. With respect to contributions this makes to marine biology: the fine scale movement patterns of both the nurse sharks and sea turtles have been largely unknown. Also, their habitats have never been mapped, as the nation of Costa Rica has less access to some of this technology. Combining these two new data sets, motion patterns and habitat maps, helps answer some of the most basic but unanswered questions regarding how these species use their habitats.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.