SBIR Phase I: Autonomous functionality for HullBUG Underwater Hull Grooming System

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project and the associated environmental benefits forthcoming from the successful research effort is immense. With 50,000 ships operating on the world?s ocean every day, and 1 Giga Tons of Green House Gases emitted every year by the global fleet, a 5-15% improvement in fuel economy through improved hull efficiency resulting from proactive grooming is staggering. With a 5% improvement in hull efficiency the fleet fuel usage will be reduced 15 Million Tons, leading to $9 Billion in fuel cost savings, while reducing Green House Gases by 45 Million Tons per year! Additionally the transport of Aquatic Invasive Species from port to port will be dramatically reduced. Successful development of an autonomous hull grooming system will stimulate proactive grooming leading to a $Billion commercial market. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project, Autonomous functionality for Underwater Hull Grooming System, seeks to develop, test, and implement the situation awareness sensors, navigation system, and supporting algorithms required for fully autonomous hull cleaning operations for proactive grooming of ship hulls. Difficulties associated with 6 degree of freedom navigation on steel ship hulls with their intrinsic magnetic field anomalies, in highly turbid water (zero visibility) is considerably. Cost effective obstacle detection and hull feature identification must be organic to the system to allow obstacle avoidance behaviors and along hull navigation fixes based on feature recognition. To aid the system a novel approach to Ultra Short Baseline Acoustic positioning will be developed, as acoustic navigation in the severe multipath environment found in close proximity along a ship hull poses significant challenges as well. Solutions to these challenges will SeaRobotics response NSF request for information related to proposal 1448602 allow a proactive grooming robot to negotiate the complexities of the hull and provide an accurate coverage model for the ship grooming operation. The required periodicity of proactive grooming will allow for the addition of inspection sensors, inspection data mapping and change detection to further improve ship hull maintenance and efficiency.