Bio-inspired Synchronous Jumping Marine Sensor Networks - SeaJumper
 

Name: Bio-inspired Synchronous Jumping Marine Sensor Networks
Acronym: SeaJumper
Funding scheme: Office of Naval Research Global, NICOP Research Grant

Total budget:  $147,609.00
Total budget for UNIZG-FER: $40.150,00

Start: 30/06/2015
Duration: 18 months
Coordinator: Imperial College of Science, technology and Medicine, London, UK
UNIZG-FER status: partner

 

Abstract :

The main goal of this project is to develop novel distributed, low-energy, marine sensors inspired by jumping aquatic animals such as the flying squid (see Fig. 1). The system will be capable of transmitting obtained underwater data by executing the sinking, rising and jumping cycle. The envisioned system will exploit jumping properties to enable autonomous recovery on-board a small-scale autonomous surface marine platform. This project will kick-start the SeaJumper development and will focus on delivering the key scientific contributions in advanced mobility across the air-water interface and robust sensor communication. Future developments will combine these concepts and integrate the SeaJumpers with Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASV) for fully automated sensing and recovery of sensor nodes in marine environments.

 

The project goals are strongly aligned with the Naval S&T focus areas including “Assure Access to the Maritime Battlespace”, “Autonomy and Unmanned Systems” and “Expeditionary and Irregular Warfare” offering unprecedented capabilities for autonomous marine robot mobility and distributed sensing. This project will initiate a high impact collaboration between Imperial College London and the University of Zagreb, leveraging expertise in both, platform development and field testing as well as simulation and multi-node communication. The results will be published in leading robotics journals and will offer concept evaluations and prototypes for a revolutionary marine sensor network paradigm.