Proceedings Article | 24 September 2007
Alberto Elfes, Gregg Podnar, John Dolan, Stephen Stancliff, Ellie Lin, Jeffrey Hosler, Troy Ames, John Moisan, Tiffany Moisan, John Higinbotham, Eric Kulczycki
Proc. SPIE. 6684, Atmospheric and Environmental Remote Sensing Data Processing and Utilization III: Readiness for GEOSS
KEYWORDS: Sensors, Telecommunications, Satellites, Cameras, Robotics, Control systems, Rhodamine, Satellite imaging, Aerospace engineering, Computer architecture
We are developing a multi-robot science exploration architecture and system called the Telesupervised Adaptive Ocean
Sensor Fleet (TAOSF). TAOSF uses a group of robotic boats (the OASIS platforms) to enable in-situ study of ocean
surface and sub-surface phenomena. The OASIS boats are extended-deployment autonomous ocean surface vehicles,
whose development is funded separately by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The
TAOSF architecture provides an integrated approach to multi-vehicle coordination and sliding human-vehicle autonomy.
It allows multiple mobile sensing assets to function in a cooperative fashion, and the operating mode of the vessels to
range from autonomous control to teleoperated control. In this manner, TAOSF increases data-gathering effectiveness
and science return while reducing demands on scientists for tasking, control, and monitoring. It combines and extends
prior related work done by the authors and their institutions. The TAOSF architecture is applicable to other areas where
multiple sensing assets are needed, including ecological forecasting, water management, carbon management, disaster
management, coastal management, homeland security, and planetary exploration. The first field application chosen for
TAOSF is the characterization of Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs). Several components of the TAOSF system have been
tested, including the OASIS boats, the communications and control interfaces between the various hardware and
software subsystems, and an airborne sensor validation system. Field tests in support of future HAB characterization
were performed under controlled conditions, using rhodamine dye as a HAB simulant that was dispersed in a pond. In
this paper, we describe the overall TAOSF architecture and its components, discuss the initial tests conducted and
outline the next steps.
