Project
Autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) for real-time mobile acoustic telemetry
Acoustic telemetry has become a valuable tool in Great Lakes fishery research. Active mobile search or tracking from crewed vessels offers the potential to detect tagged fish with greater flexibility and more rapid data access than stationary receivers, but is rarely used because it is labor-intensive and costly. Recent interest in mobile receiver platforms has focused on autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) such as Slocum gliders. However, the cost of these AUVs places a constraint on access. Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs, a.k.a., robotic boats) offer a practical mobile telemetry solution with low cost and low complexity in fabrication, operation, and maintenance. The goal of the proposed effort is to significantly advance the capabilities, applicability, and accessibility of ASVs for acoustic telemetry, including advancing ASV-based real-time telemetry, enabling multi-ASV collaboration for large-scale survey and fine-scale tag localization, and developing the competency of the GLATOS community in ASV-based mobile telemetry.