Florida Atlantic University’s College of Engineering and Computer Science has been granted a $1.25 million grant by the United States Office of Naval Research (ONR) to research autonomous unmanned marine vehicle platforms for coastal surveillance, coastal surveys, target tracking and protection of at-sea assets.
The project will last five years and will develop unmanned surface vehicles that serve as motherships for unmanned underwater vehicles and aerial drones, enabling multi-vehicle, multi-domain capability serving as a mobile coastal monitoring system.
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The project will leverage FAU’s Naval Engineering Education Consortium effort along with the Naval Surface Warfare Center, Panama City, which involves two unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV) for subsurface sensing to detect of objects on the sea bottom.
FAU researchers will develop capabilities for multi-sensor perception, collision avoidance, simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), and improved low-level control in difficult weather conditions. Capabilities will also be developed for a USV to serve as a docking station for power and data transfer between the USV and UUVs and aerial drones. The Implementation of the SLAM algorithm will provide the SUV situational awareness and improved navigation and path planning.
Manhar Dhanak, Ph.D, principal investigator of the award and professor and director of SeaTech – The Institute for Ocean and Systems Engineering in FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering.
Our focus will be on developing a multi-vehicle system that can safely and reliably navigate coastal waters with a high level of autonomy while performing assigned tasks. We will build on our ongoing efforts and leverage technological advances in sensor systems for perception and communication, as well as in computer architecture and robotic frameworks.
