Riverine Exploration

The aim of this project is to implement a fully sensor-equipped river & marine robotic platform. The vehicle is expected to have the ability to navigate through an uncertain river network with only a very basic route map. To avoid obstacles the vehicle will be equipped with the following sensor suite:

(*) BlueView MB2250 Microbathmtry Sonar
(*) Garmin GMR18 Marine Radar
(*) 2-3 SICK LIDAR Range Sensors

Obviously the vehicle will need to traverse locations in which GPS coverage is unavailable - such as under bridges and beneath dense tree cover. In these locations the vehicle will rely instead on a map built by the range sensors combined with velocity estimates derived from an Oxford Tech Inertial+2 INS.

The project will also substantially upgrade one of the robotic kayaks to include two separate processors with a total of 6 computing cores.