I-Corps: Aquatic debris cleanup using multi-agent unmanned surface vehicles and hotspot-based path optimization

I-Corps：使用多智能体无人水面车辆和基于热点的路径优化进行水生碎片清理

• 批准号: 2105958
• 负责人: Jan Kleissl
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-03-15 至 2022-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2105958&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Aquatic; debris; cleanup; using

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to benefit US shorelines. The World Economic Forum predicts that by 2050 there will be more plastic than fish in the world's oceans. Waterfront maintenance workers face the brunt of the marine trash pollution issue as 80% of marine trash is sourced near-shore. As a result, waterfront governments alone spend a total of $10.2 billion to clean these waterways. The proposed technology benefits ecosystems by removing trash pollution from our shores, thereby preventing ecosystem degradation and allowing people to both benefit from marine services now and in the future. This I-Corps project introduces the use of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USV) to maximize debris cleanup performance and provide affordable solutions to cleaning these waterways. Solutions are being developed to address the oceanic plastic pollution problem once the debris is already in the ocean; however, insufficient effort is directed towards improving shoreline pickup, which contains 80% of plastic debris. Human-operated methods to collect the debris is inefficient and cost ineffective. This opens the door to expand USV technology to waterway maintenance. Similarly, USV environmental monitoring capabilities may provide data to the waterways and researchers such as oxygen monitoring for algae blooms and affordable data capture. The team currently has a working prototype and partnerships at the Jacobs School of Engineering and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The I-Corps customer discovery activities will reveal the exact pain points experienced in these waterways to inform the proposed technology.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.

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力将使美国海岸线受益。世界经济论坛预测，到2050年，世界海洋中的塑料将比鱼还多。海滨维修工人是海洋垃圾污染问题的主要受害者，因为80%的海洋垃圾来自近岸。因此，仅滨水地区的政府就花费了102亿美元来清理这些水道。拟议中的技术通过清除海岸上的垃圾污染，从而防止生态系统退化，使人们从现在和未来的海洋服务中受益，从而使生态系统受益。I-Corps的这个项目引入了无人水面车辆（USV）的使用，以最大限度地提高碎片清理性能，并为清洁这些水道提供经济实惠的解决方案。一旦垃圾已经进入海洋，解决海洋塑料污染问题的解决方案正在制定中；然而，在改善海岸线拾取方面的努力还不够，海岸线拾取含有80%的塑料碎片。人工收集垃圾的方法效率低，成本低。这为将USV技术扩展到水道维护打开了大门。同样，USV的环境监测能力可以为水道和研究人员提供数据，如藻类繁殖的氧气监测和经济实惠的数据采集。该团队目前在雅各布斯工程学院和斯克里普斯海洋学研究所有一个工作原型和合作伙伴关系。I-Corps的客户发现活动将揭示在这些水道中遇到的确切痛点，从而为提出的技术提供信息。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。