A team of researchers from Oregon State University will lead a three-year, $1.5 million project to develop and test an underwater robot swarm for studying ice shelves. The robots will be able to collect critical data on the size of ice cavities and the properties of the surrounding environment.
The project is funded by the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs. The project aims to advance underwater research in enclosed and difficult-to-access environments, such as cavities beneath ice shelves.
Working in water under ice is particularly challenging, as communication in these conditions is difficult and there is no direct access to the surface to retrieve a submarine robot. Scientists need robots that can enter these spaces and then return safely.
The working concept is a system that includes a large underwater mothership that carries and can deploy a swarm of small AUVs, which can disperse and explore the waters beneath a melting ice shelf or in other difficult-to-reach locations. The robots will be able to operate autonomously and make decisions based on the surrounding conditions.
The project will involve the development of a system for deploying and retrieving the swarm of small AUVs from the mothership, the development of equipment and protocols for communication and positioning in underwater conditions, and algorithms for navigation and decision-making that allow the robots to adapt their behavior and data collection to the conditions they encounter.
Over the next three years, researchers plan to conduct a series of tests in water, including tests in a frozen lake in Oregon.
If the challenge can be solved in the most challenging underwater environment, the development could be effectively used in a number of other conditions, such as in coastal waters, where a swarm of small AUVs could be effectively used for sampling.
Rover technologies are already well known for aerial and terrestrial environments, but off-the-shelf solutions do not work in underwater-underice environments.
The research team also includes Phil Landrigan from Brigham Young University; Atsushi Muto from Temple University; Nicholas Ripkema from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution; Yu She from Purdue University; and Si Yu from West Virginia University.
