The MIT Laboratory for Autonomous Marine Sensing in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering is specializing in the development of new distributed
ocean sensing concepts for oceanographic science, national defense and coastal
management and protection. The laboratory was established in 2005 following
the merger of the Mechanical and Ocean Engineering
departments. It continues two decades of multi-disciplinary research and development
into such systems by Department of Ocean Engineering, and the MIT Sea Grant
AUV Laboratory. In addition to the Laboratory Director,
Prof. Henrik Schmidt, the research team includes
PLUSNet07: Keyport, Washington; Sept.-Oct. 2007 (Password protected)
ORION Cyberinfrastructure Development
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The MIT Laboratory for Autonomous Marine Sensing in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering is specializing in the development of new distributed
ocean sensing concepts for oceanographic science, national defense and coastal
management and protection. The laboratory was established in 2005 following
the merger of the Mechanical and Ocean Engineering
departments. It continues two decades of multi-disciplinary research and development
into such systems by Department of Ocean Engineering, and the MIT Sea Grant
AUV Laboratory. In addition to the Laboratory Director,
Prof. Henrik Schmidt, the research team includes
four faculty, Prof.
John Leonard, Prof.
Daniela Rus, Prof.
Arthur Baggeroer, and Prof.
Pierre Lermusiaux; four Research Engineers, Dr. Arjuna Balasuriya,
Mr. Joseph Curcio, Dr. Donald Eickstedt, and
Dr. Michael Benjamin; and one post-doc, Dr. Wenyu Luo.
The faculty and staff, together with a significant number
of students, provides a strongly multidisciplinary
team with expertise in oceanographic sensing and modeling, sonar system technology,
computational underwater acoustics, and marine robotics and communication networking.
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Bluefin'21 AUVs and autonomous surface craft operated by the Laboratory for
Autonomous Marine Sensing from the NATO R/V Leonardo in July 2005
at Elba Island, Italy.
Five MIT Autonomous Surface Craft in use in the Charles River Test Bed
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Major Equipment
The Laboratory owns and operates two state-of-the-art Bluefin'21 autonomous
underwater vehicles (AUV), and a fleet of ten autonomous surface craft (ASC),
as well as support equipment for their operation, including an acoustic communication
bouy, and a Sonadyne long baseline navigation system. The laboratory is operating
the AUV and ASC from research vessels, and have been deployed and operated on
average once a year during major field experiments. Through joint research agreements
with the NATO Undersea Research Centre (NURC) in La Spezia, Italy, the Laboratory
has regular access to their two research vessels, and their engineering research
staff. The Laboratory operates several payloads for the AUV, including three
acoustic sensing payloads for oceanographic mapping, bottom and sub-bottom object
detection. Currently, a new payload is being built under ONR DURIP funding,
including a highly capable acoustic towed array, intended for littoral undersea
surveillance, and other underwater acoustic research.
Charles River ASC Test-bed
Through an agreement with the MIT Sailing Pavilion the Laboratory has established
a test-bed for the autonomous surface craft on the Charles River, adjacent to
MIT. This Charles River ASC Test-bed is used for smaller scale testing of new
adaptive and collaborative sensing concepts. As such it provides a useful intermediate
link between the simulation environment and ocean field experiments. The test-bed
is used routinely for development and testing of collaborative and adaptive,
autonomous control of up to ten ASC using the MOOS-IvP control architecture.
Computing
The laboratory operates a cluster of ten workstations, in addition to a large
number of laptop computers used for the field efforts. Most of the computers
are operated using the Linux operating system, with the laptops in general having
a dual-boot capability in Windows. The computer network includes a central CVS
server for the open-source
MOOS-IvP autonomous platform control software
applied
exclusively for the robotic platforms in the Laboratory. It also supports a
state-of-the-art underwater acoustic modeling capability available to faculty,
staff and students. A specific capability is a comprehensive MOOS-IvP simulation
capability, which is used for simulation experiments, which the Laboratory uses
extensively in the planning and preparation of field experiments, and for development
and testing of new autonomous behaviors and processes. A unique capability of
the MOOS-IvP simulator is the full integration of a high-fidelity, real-time
underwater acoustic modeling capability, which supports simulation of fully
autonomous acoustic sensing missions with AUVs towing hydrophone arrays. This
capability is a crucial component of the development of the fully integrated,
autonomous sensing, modeling and control concepts being required for distributed
underwater surveillance systems with no or extremely limited possibility for
operator involvement and intervention.
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Harvard Ocean Prediction System
With Prof. Pierre Lermusiaux
joining MIT in Jan. 2007, and becoming the latest faculty to be associated,
the Laboratory will add the Harvard Ocean Prediction System (HOPS) to its in-house
capabilities. The Laboratory faculty has a decade long history of collaborating
with the HOPS group, and most recently, as part of the ONR PLUSNet effort, HOPS
is being closely integrated with the MOOS-IvP simulation environment, further
enhancing the Laboratory's capabilities for simulating adaptive and collaborative
sensing missions with distributed, fixed and mobile platforms.
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Links:
MIT Ocean Acoustics Group
MIT MSEAS Group
MIT Center for Ocean Engineering
MIT Dept. of Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
MOOS-IvP Home Page
MOOS-IvP Software
Oxford MOOS Home Page
Bluefin Robotics
Maribotics Robotic Marine Systems
Defense Advanced Research Project Agency
Office of Naval Research
MIT Sea Grant AUV Lab Wiki page
Last updated: 041608 webmaster
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