SBIR Phase II: Robotic Coral Reef Restoration

SBIR 第二阶段：机器人珊瑚礁恢复

• 批准号: 2111718
• 负责人: Abhimanyu Belani
• 金额: $ 96.28万
• 依托单位: REEFGEN INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-11-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2111718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Robotic; Coral

The broader impact of this SBIR Phase II project will be to address the rate of coral reef degradation. An estimated half of all coral reefs have already been lost. Current restoration efforts can restore on the order of one hectare per year while the world is losing on the order of one million hectares of reef per year. The goal of this project is to scale up coral restoration capacity worldwide to a level that keeps pace with the rate of coral mortality. Through this project, development of an automated coral planting system will remove the rate-limiting manual labor from coral out-planting, providing a dramatic increase in worker productivity in reef restoration. This development will enable construction of low-cost fleets of planters to repopulate damaged coral reefs. It will also promote widespread application of knowledge about coral health and enhanced resilience, needed to keep corals alive in a changing ocean climate. Healthy reefs then can provide habitat for food species, physical protection for coastlines, and income for tourism-based economies. The focus of this project is development of an automated coral planting system to rapidly attach corals to a degraded reef. The major technical innovation is to provide both a physical installation toolset and navigation capability in a chaotic shallow water environment such that the vehicle can plant hundreds of corals per hour. The primary technical direction proposed is to use a nearly neutrally buoyant underwater vehicle to navigate the reef and perform the planting operations. The vehicle will carry trays of corals from nurseries and have an internal coral management system to feed them into a planter. When the vehicle has selected a suitable planting location using a combination of inertial and acoustic navigation and vision sensors, it will clear a surface of rubble and algae, drill a hole, and insert a coral into the hole, permanently attaching it. Each vehicle greatly multiplies the planting rate of an operator. As autonomous behaviors are implemented through this project, each operator will be able to handle fleets of vehicles, raising coral planting rates to a level that begins addressing the rate of coral loss.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.

SBIR 第二阶段项目的更广泛影响将是解决珊瑚礁退化的问题。据估计，一半的珊瑚礁已经消失。当前的恢复工作每年可以恢复大约一公顷的珊瑚礁，而世界每年正在损失大约一百万公顷的珊瑚礁。该项目的目标是扩大全球珊瑚恢复能力，使其达到与珊瑚死亡率同步的水平。通过该项目，自动化珊瑚种植系统的开发将消除珊瑚外植过程中限制速率的体力劳动，从而大幅提高珊瑚礁恢复过程中工人的生产力。这一发展将使建造低成本的种植船队能够重新填充受损的珊瑚礁。它还将促进有关珊瑚健康和增强复原力的知识的广泛应用，这是保持珊瑚在不断变化的海洋气候中生存所必需的。健康的珊瑚礁可以为食物物种提供栖息地，为海岸线提供实物保护，并为旅游业经济提供收入。该项目的重点是开发自动化珊瑚种植系统，以将珊瑚快速附着在退化的珊瑚礁上。主要技术创新是提供物理安装工具集和在混乱的浅水环境中的导航能力，使得车辆每小时可以种植数百颗珊瑚。提出的主要技术方向是使用近乎中性浮力的水下航行器在珊瑚礁上航行并进行种植作业。该车辆将运载来自苗圃的珊瑚托盘，并具有内部珊瑚管理系统，将它们喂入种植园。当车辆使用惯性和声学导航以及视觉传感器的组合选择合适的种植位置时，它将清除表面的碎石和藻类，钻一个孔，并将珊瑚插入孔中，使其永久附着。 每辆车都大大增加了操作员的播种率。由于通过该项目实施自主行为，每个运营商将能够处理车队，将珊瑚种植率提高到开始解决珊瑚损失率的水平。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。