Dynamic Swarming of USVs for Hydrographic Surveys in Disaster Recovery

Marine Advanced Robotics (MAR) has developed a family of uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) based on our patented WAM-V® technology. WAM-V stands for Wave Adaptive Modular Vessel – a highly stable, portable, foldable, and energy-efficient class of watercraft. These sturdy, scalable USVs can be pre-staged prior to a hurricane, stored in standard shipping containers, and deployed without existing infrastructure; they can be quickly assembled and launched from the beach by a small team of people. Marine Advanced Robotics and our customers use this versatile USV for multiple hydrographic survey applications, including but not limited to, force multiplier applications with crewed survey vessels. MAR proposes to further develop the collaborative algorithms used in the autonomous teaming of the WAM-Vs such that a survey area can be predefined, and the swarm of WAM-Vs will autonomously map and make line plan adjustments based on real-time water depth from the sonar, the number of USVs in the swarm, and the desired overlap. The sonar coverage from the USVs will be visible on one instance of the acquisition sonar, and the surveyor can make real-time adjustments (e.g., percent overlap, number of USVs, survey area, minimum depth of survey) during the survey operation from a safe location on shore.