Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an underwater robot that is more advanced than current robots. Not only can it perform tasks, it can also make high-level decisions to ensure successful execution of its missions.
Current autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are programmed to follow the scripts or low-level commands fed by engineers. The vehicles won't know where to go and how long to stay underwater unless the script provides that information. And for unanticipated events, they weren't equipped to tweak the script so that they could finish their mission. Having known this challenge, the MIT engineers developed an underwater robot that won't have this issue.
The underwater robot developed by MIT engineers is equipped with an autonomous mission-planning system that allows it to plan and execute its own missions. In case of unanticipated events, the engineers programmed it to decide whether to drop the task or set up another plan. The underwater robot was tested for three weeks off the western coast of Australia.
The team drew inspiration from the command center starship Enterprise of the movie "Star Trek." It is also similar to the autonomous system that Brian Williams, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, and principal developer of the mission-planning system, developed for NASA in 1993 which could diagnose and repair problems on its own.
"We wanted to show that these vehicles could plan their own missions, and execute, adapt, and re-plan them alone, without human support," Williams said in a news release. "With this system, we were showing we could safely zigzag all the way around the reef, like an obstacle course."
The development of the mission-planning system can help the engineers save time and reduce the manpower needed for operations.
The engineers will present their mission-planning system in June at the International Conference on Automated Planning and Scheduling in Israel.
