(upbeat electronic music)
- [Jamie] Hi, everyone.
Our last update from this Technology Integration Challenge.
For this expedition,
each team came with its own list of things
that needed to be checked out,
validated, or improved on each robot and Nautilus itself
as we integrated our systems to operate together.
And it all came together during our last couple of dives,
where we successfully demonstrated
a full stack of three vehicles
exploring different dynamics of the ocean,
all at the same time, with Nautilus operating nearby.
This is a new paradigm for at-sea operations.
Here are a few updates from those last few missions.
- [Larry] Hi, everybody.
This is Larry here from the DriX Team.
Our vehicle was launched first for both of these operations,
demonstrating a few key elements
that enabled all the vehicles to work together.
First, mapping.
At its core, DriX is a specialized vehicle
for fast, efficient, and high-quality mapping.
What you can see here is an example of a DriX-produced map.
The Kongsberg EM 2040 provides us excellent resolution
in shallow areas, like our site east of Lanai.
Another key feature of DriX is the Marine Broadband Radio,
which is a long distance communication link.
From distances up to 20 kilometers,
we're able to relay information back to the ship
in real time.
This radio link was the foundation for multi-vehicle ops
and we could not have confidently
reached our goal without it.
Another benefit of the radio link
is that it allowed the ship to move away from DriX
in carrying out its own independent mapping operation.
This greatly extended the area we could cover
and revealed an interesting target
that we decided was worthy of exploration
with all three vehicles.
A lonely pinnacle that shot up more than 75 meters
from the flat surrounding sea floor.
(mellow music)
- [Dana] Dana here with Team Mesobot.
Using this map, we were able to plan a mission
to explore the midwater above and around this feature.
Throughout this cruise,
we've gotten pretty good at our core missions
of deploying Mesobot to follow isolooms
or sample eDNA within layer.
But those successes were on solo drives with Nautilus.
For these final dives,
we were keen to demonstrate our ability to communicate
and adjust a mission through DriX well away from the ship
as we interrogated its sensors in real-time.
So, we launched Mesobot shortly after DriX
and commanded it to drive to a feature identified by DriX,
which was circling above.
That's what you're seeing in this incredible recording
of our dive.
See DriX circling around Mesobot?
Imagine it's operating like an aircraft control center,
circling above Mesobot,
and maintaining its acoustic communication,
and revealing the layers below.
Our first step was to test this link,
and using DriX's EK80, actually monitor
where the layers of animal life were located
so Mesobot could investigate by taking images
and measuring the light levels.
And look at that.
See the little red streak?
That's actually Mesobot showing up on DriX's sonar.
With DriX still supporting from the surface,
we started sampling and even interactively driving Mesobot
to different areas of interest as they appeared.
A capability that's a bit of a home run for all of us.
We can now redirect Mesobot in real-time from miles away
through this acoustic link to features revealed by DriX.
(mellow music)
- [Roland] Hey, everyone.
Roland here from UNH's ASV Group and part of team DriX.
Let's talk about that acoustic link for a second.
These vehicles communicate with tiny text messages,
about the size of a text message on your phone.
Little SMS messages that flow back and forth
between acoustic modems.
Here's what it looks like.
Now, a real challenge is when there's multiple vehicles
in the water and each is trying to communicate
over different protocols, in effect different languages.
It's even more complicated
when they're all talking at the same time.
Imagine a group chat between Nautilus and these robots
on your phone.
Mesobot's designed to constantly text his position
and status into its surroundings.
It can also acknowledge when a message gets received,
but no more.
That's by design, but it can get a bit spammy.
Another challenge is that Mesobot
needs to remain close enough to an acoustic modem
to send and receive good text messages.
That's where DriX steps in
with its long range data link sensors
and its ability to follow Mesobot closely.
With a good acoustic link
and data flowing from sensors to ship,
we were able to not only monitor positions,
but even drive Mesobot using real-time data.
The software architecture proved its flexibility
when we were tasked with adding a fourth vehicle to the mix.
As Nereid Under Ice also started using its acoustic modem,
we were able to transmit their messages in a similar manner
and display all four vehicle positions
on the same unified map.
Our software was the glue that allowed us
to coordinate operations throughout the dives
as the mission progressed.
(mellow music)
- [Molly] And yes, folks,
this is Molly with Nereid Under Ice.
For this mission, we knew exactly where we were
and what the sea bed looked like
thanks to DriX's beautiful map.
As we reached the pinnacle, Mesobot was sampling above
and DriX was circling on the surface.
Our light fiber tether enabled this unique mission profile
as Nautilus was able to keep clear of DriX on the surface
while we operated as an ROV
directly under the other vehicles that were deployed,
using our cameras and sensors to explore the sea floor.
And having this tether was additionally valuable
to develop our own acoustic communications protocols
to work through DriX.
A key capability we wanted to demonstrate
as part of this multi-vehicle jamboree
as we shifted to exploring in autonomous mode.
Through DriX, we continued our exploration mission
using NUI's co-exploration protocols.
Co-exploration, or co-ex, allows the users
to select what information they think is most valuable,
and prioritize those features
over a low bandwidth connection.
It shows how onboard autonomy and data processing
can provide actionable summaries of high resolution data
that is otherwise only available post-processing.
- [Jason] Hey, folks, Jason here.
I'll wrap up by saying how important it is to be prepared.
During this last dive,
we had Mesobot unexpectedly come to the surface,
an event that normally might end an entire mission.
However, because our teams were prepared,
with multiple modes of operations,
we were able to continue exploring
while the team started diagnosing the problem.
As Nautilus moved to recover Mesobot,
NUI seamlessly switched to AV mode,
using its acoustic modems link with DriX to keep exploring.
How awesome is that?
This is a great example of our goal
to test the best ways to integrate
these different technologies that are great on their own,
but so much more powerful working together.
(upbeat electronic music)