NSF Award
1531322
The goal of this project is to address water-related issues in the Four Corners Region through an automated, robotic monitoring system composed of multiple cooperating and communicating autonomous robots that serve as an integrated monitoring system. Aquatic observation and monitoring is key to understanding and ultimately predicting long-term effects of urbanization, water storage and climate change. Effective observation and monitoring requires simultaneous measurement of multiple water properties, which must be made rapidly to capture variations in both space and time. Autonomous aquatic vehicles provide a cost-effective, non-intrusive, and a repeatable way of observing aquatic ecosystems up close, and at an unprecedented resolution. With these modern robots having such amazing capabilities, the main challenge in this project is to determine where and when to deploy the robots to gain the most understanding of our water resources. Through this research effort, the research will not only learn more about water resources in the Four Corners Region, but it will additionally develop algorithms and intelligent sampling strategies that can be utilized for studying any aquatic environment around the world, e.g., oceans, lakes, rivers, etc. Aquatic wireless sensor networks are instrumental to a better scientific understanding of aquatic ecosystems, environmental monitoring, surveillance for defense applications, homeland security, and aquaculture, providing a wealth of applications to the community beyond those directly studied in this proposal.<br/><br/>Effective observation and quantification of spatiotemporally dynamic processes occurring in aquatic environments, e.g., the ocean, requires simultaneous measurement of diverse water properties, which must be made rapidly to capture the both the spatial and temporal variability of multiple simultaneous interactions. This cannot be done by traditional oceanographic methods involving infrequent and sparse measurements from ships, buoys and drifters. The research must employ an adaptive-sampling, heterogeneous team of robotic assets that can perform in situ feature recognition and event response with accurate localization to plug a substantial gap in understanding of a range of processes: physical (e.g., tidal mixing and seasonal overturn), chemical (e.g., nutrient upwelling and hypoxia), and biological (e.g., harmful algal blooms). Successfully orchestrating a multi-vehicle, deployment additionally requires a robust, rapid and cost-effective communication network. Only when all these components, which form an aquatic robotic, sensing system, are in synchronous operation can scientists begin to improve our overall understanding of the complex aquatic environment. This project will acquire and implement a heterogeneous networked instrument composed of three complementary aquatic robots; two autonomous surface vehicles and one autonomous underwater vehicle. These networked robots will enhance a program of research in marine robotics, networking, and deliberative planning to address fundamental questions in marine biology, oceanography, and aquatic biogeochemistry by addressing critical water quality issues within the Four Corners Region. The proposed instrument acquisition will provide a cost-effective test bed for the validation of planning and sampling strategies for large-scale, heterogeneous robotic networks. Specifically, the proposed system will enable researchers to efficiently and cost-effectively develop, test and validate coordinated, multi-vehicle control algorithms and strategies for intelligent aquatic sampling.
