Collaborative Research: Ideas Lab: ETAUS Meshed Observations of THE Remote Subsurface with Heterogeneous Intelligent Platforms (MOTHERSHIP)

温暖的海水使冰架融化，破坏了冰川的稳定，加强了流入海洋的冰，并导致全球海平面上升。需要测量冰架下的海洋特性，以改进对海平面上升的全球预测，并预测其社会后果。然而，这样的测量很难获得。在这个创意实验室：工程技术推进水下科学（ETAUS）项目中，将开发一个概念验证母舰和乘客系统，以允许未来部署一种高性能、自主的水下航行器（母舰），它可以在冰架下尽可能安全地航行，释放一群新颖、低成本的乘客机器人，这些机器人将协调进一步探索冰洞。作为该项目的母舰和乘客系统的一部分，开发的硬件原型、网络通信系统和协议以及协调算法将有助于推进在受限和难以到达的环境下的水下勘探领域。该项目还将通过在俄勒冈州MATE ROV区域竞赛上发表演讲，吸引俄勒冈州小型渔业社区的年轻人参与，通过科学与工程学徒计划（ASE）暑期学院计划聘用高中实习生，以及在参与机构培训多名本科生和研究生，来培养未来的科学家和工程师。该项目的目标是开发一个母船和乘客采样系统，通过开阔的海洋到达难以进入的冰川接地区，测量冰洞的范围和周围的水性质。该项目将在三个主要研究领域进行创新：1)乘客机器人设计，2)声学通信协议和硬件，以及3)母舰和乘客协调算法。新型的、低成本的乘客机器人将被设想出来，它们可以通过不同的操作模式切换，以优化机动性、功耗，或者两者的组合，根据需要在整个部署过程中完成各种任务。将开发声学通信协议和硬件，优先考虑乘客机器人之间的鲁棒通信，并通过利用飞行时间和乘客之间的到达角度来估计相对位置，从而允许群体自我定位。设计群体协调算法，从乘客机器人的相对位置估计流量方向和强度，以优化导航和功耗。该网络的性能将在越来越具有挑战性的环境中进行测试，即测试将在游泳池、未结冰的湖泊以及最终在结冰的湖泊中进行，同时将对具有更大群的网络功能进行建模，以确保系统在海洋部署中的可扩展性。最后，为母舰和乘客通信和自我定位协议开发的软件将是可推广的，并提供开源，以允许其他研究团队根据自己的需要调整系统。母舰和乘客采样系统不仅将提高冰下观测能力，而且还将有更广泛的海洋学应用，如探测和监测水下有害藻华或威胁渔业的缺氧事件。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。

Melting of ice shelves by warm ocean waters destabilizes glaciers, enhancing ice flow into the ocean and contributing to global sea level rise. Measurements of ocean properties under ice shelves are needed to improve global predictions of sea level rise and to anticipate its societal consequences. Such measurements, however, are challenging to obtain. In this Ideas Lab: Engineering Technologies to Advance Underwater Sciences (ETAUS) project, a proof-of-concept mothership-and-passenger system will be developed to permit the future deployment of a highly capable, autonomous underwater vehicle (the mothership), programmed to travel as far as safely possible under ice shelves to release a swarm of novel, low-cost passenger robots that will coordinate to explore further into the ice cavity. The hardware prototypes, networked communication systems and protocols, and coordination algorithms developed as part of this project’s mothership-and-passenger system will help advance the field of underwater exploration in confined and hard-to-reach environments. The project will also foster the training of future scientists and engineers by engaging youths from small fishing communities in Oregon through presentations at Oregon’s MATE ROV Regional Competition, by employing high-school interns through the Apprenticeships in Science and Engineering (ASE) Summer Academy Program, and by training multiple undergraduate and graduate students at participating institutions.The goal of this project is to develop a mothership-and-passenger sampling system to reach difficult-to-access glacier grounding zones via the open ocean to measure the extent of ice cavities and surrounding water properties. The project will innovate along three main areas of inquiry: 1) passenger robot design, 2) acoustic communication protocols and hardware, and 3) mothership-and-passenger coordination algorithms. Novel, low-cost passenger robots will be conceived that can switch through different operation modes to optimize maneuverability, power consumption, or a combination of both, as needed for various tasks throughout a deployment. Acoustic communication protocols and hardware will be developed to prioritize robust communication between passenger robots over throughput and permit swarm self-localization by utilizing time-of-flight and angle-of-arrival between passengers to estimate relative positions. Swarm coordination algorithms will be designed to estimate flow direction and strength from the passenger robots’ relative positions to optimize navigation and power consumption. The performance of the network will be tested in increasingly challenging environments, i.e., tests will be conducted in a pool, an unfrozen lake, and finally in a frozen lake, while network capabilities with a larger swarm will be modeled to ensure the scalability of the system to ocean deployments. Finally, the software developed for the mothership-and-passenger communication and self-localization protocols will be generalizable and made available open-source to allow other research teams to adapt the system to their own needs. The mothership-and-passenger sampling system will not only advance under-ice-observation capabilities but also have wider oceanographic applications such as detection and monitoring of underwater harmful algal blooms or anoxic events threatening fisheries.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.