Unmanned vessel innovations help to advance next-generation naval vessels

“Imagine a world where you could have a boat and just tell it where to go, [and it could arrive there] without any human input,” muses Edmund Hoffman, mechatronics engineer of the Stevens Institute of Technology Autonomous Surface Vehicle (ASV) Senior Design Team. As part of their capstone senior project, the team is participating in the international effort to realize unmanned vessel technology. On June 20th-24th, 2012, they will take their ASV to the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) and Office of Naval Research-sponsored 5th International RoboBoat Competition, where some of the nation’s best science and engineering students will deploy ASVs of their own design and construction in an international competition that takes their vessels through an arduous aquatic obstacle course.

VIDEO: Roboboat in action

"This Stevens team is facing leading international competition, and they will once again showcase the top-tier talent of our graduating engineers," says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science.

The team’s ASV will have to navigate an aquatic obstacle course of colored buoys before performing various other challenges, such as grabbing a hockey puck and delivering it to land. While those capabilities are noteworthy in themselves, the true difficulty arises from the requirement that the vehicle be self-sufficient and able to perform the tasks autonomously.

“I feel that they are on their way to a success that will make them and Stevens proud,” says Dr. Michael DeLorme, Research Associate & adjunct professor of Naval Engineering. “This year’s team has decided to add sensor capabilities to their ASV in hopes of exceeding the success of last year’s group. This decision brought significant challenges and risks that the team has been working very hard to overcome. Their vision system, which is the most critical on the ASV, makes use of existing technology from a completely different industry. It is this type of innovation and cross disciplinary thinking that demonstrates the strength of our student research.”

“It has been exhilarating to apply our classroom knowledge on a long hands-on project,” says Mechanical Engineer Rei Darwin Flores. The team members all agreed that working with engineers from other disciplines has been invaluable to their progress. “You get to see things from a new perspective,” says head computer engineer Daniel Bolella. “Sometimes you clash on ideas, and sometimes you say to yourself, ‘Wow, I would never have thought of that.’” If their project and their ASV are particularly inventive, the Office of Naval Research will be watching in the hopes of applying resourceful student innovations to real-world problems in naval engineering and autonomous vehicles.

"The multidisciplinary engineering education of the team has prepared them for this invaluable experience, and they go into the competition as some of the finest emerging engineers in the country," says Dr. Frank Fisher, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Nanotechnology Graduate Program.

Roboboat team in Davidson Labs

The students linked a Microsoft Kinect camera to the ship's onboard computer for sensing, panning and tilting. The Kinect camera senses depth and communicates with the onboard computer to let it know when an object is in the vessel's path.

After the design and assembly of the ASV, the Stevens team first tested it in a local reservoir to see how it handled by remote control and captured camera data, all the while fielding questions from curious onlookers. They then implemented the sensing capability and began major testing in the state-of-the-art Davidson Laboratory towing tank at Stevens. The high speed towing tank is a straight tank of water 313 feet long and 16 feet wide, supporting water depths as high as 7 feet. It is one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the United States. "It's an amazing experience to have access to a world-class research facility as a student," says project manager Travis Krichman.

The Stevens ASV team is an interdisciplinary team comprised of five Mechanical Engineer majors, two Computer Science majors, and a Naval Engineering major.

Travis Krichman, the project manager, is a senior mechanical engineering major responsible for advancing progress on all areas of the ASV project. Task manager Shawn Warren is a senior mechanical engineering major in charge of organizing project components and group meetings. Edmund Hoffman, a senior mechanical engineering major, is the project’s mechatronics engineer and primary liaison to the Computer Engineering team. Rich Adamski is a senior mechanical engineering major. He is the team’s mechanical design engineer, accountable for design changes to current and new components. Rei Darwin Flores is a senior mechanical engineering student conducting product research that will enhance project development. Daniel Bolella is a computer science student directing all programming aspects and components of the project. Mike Caruso is the team’s second senior computer science major. He is also working on programming aspects of the project. Greg Charriez is a junior Naval Engineering student in charge of the hull design and propulsion systems of the ASV system.

Visit the Stevens ASV Project website for more information.

A team  of undergraduate Stevens students representing; Naval Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering Management with support from the Davidson Laboratory are taking part in a two semester research, design, build and demonstrate project named Perseus, sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office.  Participants will examine emerging technologies that may be of significant interest to the Department of Defense (DoD).

The objective of Perseus is to explore if a party, with modest resourcing and in a relatively short period of time, could assemble an Unmanned Underwater Vehicle (UUV), Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) or Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) capable of conducting a specified mission.  It also provides a venue for students to demonstrate their multidisciplinary engineering skills.  Perseus will culminate with the opportunity for each student team to demonstrate their engineering skills by running their underwater vehicle in the Florida Keys.

Four academic institutions are taking part in Perseus during the 2012 calendar year.  Teams consist solely of undergraduate students under the guidance of faculty advisors. The schools have been provided modest funding to procure components for their AUV/ROV/UUV, and travel to the Perseus final demonstration site at Florida Keys Community College.

Participating institutions are:

·         Florida Atlantic University

·         Florida Keys Community College 

·         Georgia Institute of Technology

·         Stevens Institute of Technology

The Perseus demonstration, associated presentations, and reports will provide Department of Defense and related stakeholders insight into a number of rapidly evolving technical areas of interest through the innovation of America’s next generation of engineers and scientists. 

ACCeSS collaborators push the boundaries of naval technology and education

The Atlantic Center for the Innovative Design and Control of Small Ships (ACCeSS) announced the renewal of annual funding worth $4.5 million over five years by the Office of Naval Research(ONR).

ACCeSS is an international consortium of university and industry partners founded in 2002 to integrate engineering disciplines associated with shipbuilding, while utilizing the corresponding unique education and research environment to recruit, train and nurture the long-term careers of young engineers. The collaborating institutions are Stevens Institute of Technology, the U.S. Naval Academy, Naval Postgraduate School, University College London, Florida Atlantic University, Webb Institute, George Mason University, Lockheed Martin, AMSEC LLC (Northrop-Grumman), and Band-Lavis & Associates.

“The continued support from the Office of Naval Research validates the high-caliber achievement of ACCeSS,” says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science and principal investigator. "It will allow us to continue our uniquely collaborative research and education activities, advancing the state of knowledge while at the same time training the next generation of our nation's ship designers."

According to Dr. Richard Bucknall of the University College London, ACCeSS has “allowed integration and dissemination of US-UK approaches to the education of marine engineers and naval architects and more significantly the teaching of ship design.” It has “allowed for staff and student exchange between [the constituent partners]” and facilitated “sharing of thoughts, contribution, and resources for ship design research, especially novel hullforms and control of vehicles including autonomy.”

ACCeSS has evolved into a flourishing hub of naval research. Initially, it focused on high-speed craft, and it has broadened to include multi-hull, trimaran and unmanned surface vessels. Ongoing multi-hull and trimaran vessel research provides extra protection while reducing power requirements at high speeds. It also provides stability for larger deck areas and increases stealth capabilities.

Meanwhile, ACCeSS is beginning work on enhancing durability and endurance of unmanned surface vessels, which are small vessels launched from mother-ship to complete a solo mission. With concurrent innovation in battery technology, or a system to generate energy on board, perhaps through solar, wave, or wind energy, the vessels will perform longer unmanned operations for the Navy. ACCeSS stands at forefront of this emergent research.

"ACCeSS is a rare and well established success story of collaborative engagement between diverse academic institutions both within and outside the US, government, and industry, with a proven track record while maintaining the proper balance of excellence in research, relevance to the Navy, and innovative education in a field with long reaching implications for US competitiveness," says Dr. Fotis Papoulias of the Naval Postgraduate School.

“ACCeSS is an excellent consortium of partners who bring complementary skills to the program in support of Naval engineering research and education,” says Dr. Manhar Dhanak. “We at Florida Atlantic University are grateful to ONR for their continued support of the program.”

"ACCeSS provides an educational test bed for the state-of-the-art naval architecture design tool development”, says Dr. Chi Yang of George Mason University. “ACCeSS offers a platform for developing hydrodynamic optimization tools to investigate innovative new-type hull forms and educate next-generation naval architects.”

“This support helps extend our capacity to enhance and empower the education of the finest young naval engineers,” says Dr. Alan Blumberg, George Meade Bond Professor & Director of the Center for Maritime Systems.

ACCeSS continues to advance the current and future capabilities of naval engineering, especially in undergraduate education that actively involves students in research programs, and the continuation of ONR support means a greater number of students can benefit from the program. Dr. Raju Datla, research associate professor at the Center for Maritime Systems and co-investigator of the ACCeSS grant, has several undergraduate and graduate students working with the high-speed towing tank at the Davidson Laboratory. They set up models, calibrate instrumentation, run tests, analyze data, make presentations at consortium meetings, and participate in annual society meetings. Dr. Datla says, “The towing tank, wave-maker, and water itself comprise a great hands-on learning environment for students.”

“The continuation of ACCeSS promotes continued collaboration between each of the universities,” says Dr. Richard Royce of Webb Institute. “[The partners] have differing skill sets and capabilities. Our strength lies in the fact that we recognize those competencies and carry research across the appropriate ACCeSS partners…The end result is better research, and more importantly, improved learning opportunities for all of our students.”

Learn more about ACCeSS, or visit Undergraduate Admissions or Graduate Admissions to apply.

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) is a division of the National Research Council, which serves as an independent adviser to the President, the Congress and federal agencies on scientific and technical questions of national importance. Dr. Thomas Wakeman of Stevens Institute of Technology was recently appointed Chair of the TRB’s Marine Group. In this role, Dr. Wakeman will coordinate all marine transportation-related research within the TRB organization with allied research in the National Academies. He was also recently appointed to a 7 member review panel for the US Department of Transportation Maritime Administration’s Panama Canal Expansion Study and to a technical expert group for Federal Highway Administration’s Gateway and Corridors Concept Forum.

“Dr. Wakeman’s experience and expertise have been vital assets to the ongoing research in maritime systems at Stevens,” says Dr. Michael Bruno, Dean of the Charles V. Schaefer, Jr. School of Engineering and Science. “His appointment as Chair of the TRB Marine Group is a testament to the impact of his research and the esteem of his colleagues.”

Several current research projects of the Transportation Research Board focus on freight’s multimodal movement within the United States and thus align with the national drive to increase exports. The White House has proposed the National Export Initiative as an ambitious plan to double US exports by 2014, improving America’s economic future and generating up to two million jobs at home.

Dr. Wakeman believes that a smart maritime transportation strategy is crucial to getting American goods to overseas markets at a competitive price. However he and other maritime leaders at TRB have learned that a broader perspective connecting sea transportation with other modes of transport is necessary to catapult America’s ability to export cost-effectively while maintaining our import supply chains.

The importance of connecting ships with trains and trucks is something Dr. Wakeman learned on the job in Iraq.

Dr. Wakeman’s career started in the US Army Corps of Engineers, where his specialty was navigation infrastructure—dredging channels and ports to allow safe passage for more or bigger ships. He brought this perspective to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, spending nearly fifteen years improving the region’s busy port facilities.

This culminated in his being asked to go to Iraq in 2004 and reopen that country’s ports to accept $14 billion of cargo needed to supply troops and rebuild factories and power plants. In Iraq, improved ports are worthless unless there is also infrastructure on land to allow movement of cargo to where it ultimately needs to go.

“It wasn’t damage from the war that had to be repaired,” Dr. Wakeman says. “It was that there had to be a reliable intermodal connections established between the different modes for moving freight from the southern ports to the northern cities.”

Since his experience in Iraq, Dr. Wakeman has been focused on making transportation infrastructure improvements using designs that take into consideration interaction between different modal networks. He finds that it is a lesson that applies just as much to the United States as it does to Iraq.

It is also a lesson that he brings to the classroom at Stevens, where Dr. Wakeman is Deputy Director of the Center for Maritime Systems and a Research Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering. He uses his experience aligning complex systems to unite the University’s many disciplines conducting research related to transportation, systems, and security in the maritime domain.

“It is critical that we bring together people from different maritime disciplines to create essential synergistic solutions to problems in finance, security, the environment, transportation infrastructure, and technology,” he says. “Students working in these fields have a wonderful opportunity to play a key role in the development of the United States and world economy in the future.”

Learn more about maritime research at Stevens by visiting the Center for Maritime Systems or reading the Maritime Systems issue of Nexus, the School of Science and Engineering Research Magazine. Start your own maritime journey at Stevens by visiting the Department of Civil, Environmental and Ocean Engineering, or visit Undergraduate Admissions or Graduate Admissions to apply.