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| − | {{#ev:youtube|mf6acgRwx0Q}}
| + | Currently, we have the following ongoing projects where we use aquatic and mobile robots in environmental monitoring applications. |
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| − | The common carp is an invasive species of fish which poses a significant threat
| + | {| cellspacing="0" cellpadding="30" |
| − | across the Midwest. This species pollutes lakes by
| + | |align="center" style="background-color: #fcfcfc;"|[[Image:Miskin.jpg|x175px|link=Carp Tracking]] |
| − | uprooting plants and releasing large quantities of harmful nutrients while
| + | [[Carp Tracking | Carp Tracking with Autonomous Boats]] |
| − | bottom-feeding. It is important to track and control the species --
| + | |align="center" style="background-color: #fcfcfc;"|[[Image:Boat-Trial-07-29-data.jpg|x175px|link=Water Quality Monitoring]] |
| − | which is what Professor [http://fwcb.cfans.umn.edu/personnel/faculty/sorensen.php Peter Sorensen], a leading expert of fish
| + | [[Water Quality Monitoring]] |
| − | behavior in the Department of Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation
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| − | Biology at the University of Minnesota, is dedicated to doing. In an
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| − | effort to study fish behavior, Dr. Sorensen's team [http://www.rwmwd.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={812F4BD6-5587-43E8-9C90-9872821A83FA}&DE={792F0DFE-D597-4E52-9CA1-0A31BF0F23A0} tags the carp] with radio emitters. But the process is labor-intensive. The
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| − | fish are caught and emitters are surgically inserted under their skin
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| − | before they are reintroduced into the lake. Collecting data then
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| − | requires the work of two lab members (typically a post-doc and a
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| − | graduate student): one to steer the boat toward locations where the
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| − | fish are likely to be found, and the other to rotate a directional
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| − | antenna in search of the fish, as the receiver loops through a list of
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| − | frequencies. Consequently, data collection can be performed only for a
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| − | limited time. Yet, Dr. Sorensen's group is often interested in
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| − | determining carp distributions at obscure places and times such as
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| − | daybreaks and shallow wetlands where carp can migrate and
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| − | reproduce. The ability to continuously monitor the lakes and outlining
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| − | environments can be very useful.
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| − | We are collaborating with Prof. Sorensen's group to automate the data
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| − | collection process. At first, one might think that a network of
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| − | stationary antenna would be suitable for this task. However, a
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| − | datalogger, receiver and antenna combination costs about $3,000, and
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| − | has a range of roughly 40 meters. Therefore, even covering a single
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| − | lake would be very costly. Even though this may be feasible for a
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| − | single lake, deploying such networks across numerous lakes around the
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| − | Twin Cities would be prohibitively costly. We believe that a
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| − | '''network of a small number of light-weight robotic rafts'''
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| − | would be ideal for this task. Such a network can be easily deployed. It can autonomously
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| − | reconfigure itself based on the location of the tagged fish.
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| − | We recently started building a robotic sensor network for monitoring carp
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| − | in Minnesota Lakes. The video above is from a field test in [http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Keller+Lake,+Maplewood,+Ramsey,+Minnesota+55109&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&hl=en&cd=1&geocode=FU7JrgIdr_1z-g&split=0&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=23.875,57.630033&ll=45.006625,-93.060755&spn=0.004832,0.006856&t=h&z=17&iwloc=A Keller Lake]. The image below is a sample trajectory (Points P1,...,P6 are waypoints. Labeled stars are points where fish were heard).
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| − | [[Image:Keller_Path.jpg|caption|300px|middle]]
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| − | Stay tuned for more on this exciting project!
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| − | In the mean time, you can contact Prof. [http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~isler/ Volkan Isler] for more information.
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| − | | |
| − | === ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ===
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| − | We are grateful to Prof. Peter Sorensen and the members of
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| − | his lab for numerous useful discussions and sharing equipment. This
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| − | work is supported by in part NSF Projects 0917676,0907658 and 0936710, and a
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| − | [http://www.environment.umn.edu/newsroom/newspages2009/residentfellows01262009.html fellowship] from the [http://environment.umn.edu/ Institute on the Environment] at the University of | |
| − | Minnesota.
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Currently, we have the following ongoing projects where we use aquatic and mobile robots in environmental monitoring applications.
