3.0

Average Course Rating

This class will introduce the design of marine robotic systems, with a particular emphasis on Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). This class is intended to give the student a broad view of the applications, design, and operation of marine robots. Students will be introduced to the ocean as an operating environment, establish mission sets, vehicle subsystems, design strategies, and performance metrics. Students will be introduced to the fundamentals of underwater acoustics, especially as it pertains to underwater sensing, navigation, and communication. Operations of AUV will be explored, along with analysis of different types of operations such as ship-based, under-ice, shore-launched, and docking-based operations. Emphasis will be given to the conceptual design phase of robot design, and the development and use of parametric approaches to performance evaluation. Finally, multiplatform survey systems will be analyzed, and we will explore the challenges associated with designing AUV that might operate on other ocean worlds, such as Europa and Enceladus.