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IPFS News Link • Science, Medicine and Technology

MIT's Undersea Robots Can Plan Their Own Missions

• http://blogs.discovermagazine.com

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a plan to make ocean exploration easier: Let undersea robots make their own decisions.

Scientists use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to map the ocean floor, monitor the health of fisheries and study ocean habitats. However, writing computer codes that tell a robot how to accomplish each mission plan is incredibly time consuming at limits the capabilities of AUVs. But MIT's Enterprise programming system gives AUVs "cognitive" capabilities, which allows them to figure out the best way to accomplish a mission without relying on an engineer's list of commands.

Setting a Goal

With the new Enterprise system, humans can assign AUVs general goals, like, for example, exploring a series of locations in the ocean within a given time frame. Once it's given a general objective, the AUV automatically crafts a plan to accomplish its mission in the most efficient way possible. If an unexpected event prevents an AUV from completing its mission while trolling the ocean, it draws up new plans and even fixes hardware malfunctions without human support.

MIT researchers tested the Enterprise system with an underwater glider in March during a research cruise off the coast of Australia. The robot adapted its mission plan on the fly and avoid collisions with other autonomous vehicles in the area, while still accomplishing its overall goal.


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