MIT's Autonomous Robot Maps Ship Hulls; Becomes a Minesweeper!
Having human divers or trained dolphins and sealions to search for underwater mines attached to ship hulls, is what the US Navy has been doing for years together. It is obvious that either of these techniques will not perform as expected at all times. Therefore, building an engineering resilient autonomous robot for these difficult minesweeping tasks of detecting the smallest of bombs under water, has been the challenge of researchers all over the world. And now folks at MIT have come up with algorithms that vastly improve such robots’ navigation and feature-detecting capabilities.
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The MIT AUV (in yellow) is designed to swim around the complex structures on a ship's hull to detect small mines. The AUV navigated around the Nantucket Lightship in Boston Harbor during a test run in June 2011.Photo: Brendan Englot
These algorithms have been able to make this robot swim around a ship’s hull. It views the  complex structures such as propellers and shafts. Their goal is to achieve a resolution fine enough to detect a 10-centimeter mine attached to the side of a ship.
As a part of MIT's Sea Grant program, the team has developed a Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV) that meets their goals. The MIT engineers are continuously improving its performance over the years. Check out the following video that explains the 3D Coverage Planning with the HAUV during an autonomous Ship Hull Inspection -
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The MIT AUV (in yellow) is designed to swim around the complex structures on a ship's hull to detect small mines. The AUV navigated around the Nantucket Lightship in Boston Harbor during a test run in June 2011.Photo: Brendan Englot
These algorithms have been able to make this robot swim around a ship’s hull. It views the  complex structures such as propellers and shafts. Their goal is to achieve a resolution fine enough to detect a 10-centimeter mine attached to the side of a ship.
As a part of MIT's Sea Grant program, the team has developed a Hovering Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (HAUV) that meets their goals. The MIT engineers are continuously improving its performance over the years. Check out the following video that explains the 3D Coverage Planning with the HAUV during an autonomous Ship Hull Inspection -
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