SBIR Phase II: Robotic Coral Reef Restoration

SBIR 第二阶段：机器人珊瑚礁恢复

• 批准号: 2111718
• 负责人: Abhimanyu Belani
• 金额: $ 96.28万
• 依托单位: REEFGEN INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Cooperative Agreement
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-11-15 至 2025-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2111718&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; Robotic; Coral

The broader impact of this SBIR Phase II project will be to address the rate of coral reef degradation. An estimated half of all coral reefs have already been lost. Current restoration efforts can restore on the order of one hectare per year while the world is losing on the order of one million hectares of reef per year. The goal of this project is to scale up coral restoration capacity worldwide to a level that keeps pace with the rate of coral mortality. Through this project, development of an automated coral planting system will remove the rate-limiting manual labor from coral out-planting, providing a dramatic increase in worker productivity in reef restoration. This development will enable construction of low-cost fleets of planters to repopulate damaged coral reefs. It will also promote widespread application of knowledge about coral health and enhanced resilience, needed to keep corals alive in a changing ocean climate. Healthy reefs then can provide habitat for food species, physical protection for coastlines, and income for tourism-based economies. The focus of this project is development of an automated coral planting system to rapidly attach corals to a degraded reef. The major technical innovation is to provide both a physical installation toolset and navigation capability in a chaotic shallow water environment such that the vehicle can plant hundreds of corals per hour. The primary technical direction proposed is to use a nearly neutrally buoyant underwater vehicle to navigate the reef and perform the planting operations. The vehicle will carry trays of corals from nurseries and have an internal coral management system to feed them into a planter. When the vehicle has selected a suitable planting location using a combination of inertial and acoustic navigation and vision sensors, it will clear a surface of rubble and algae, drill a hole, and insert a coral into the hole, permanently attaching it. Each vehicle greatly multiplies the planting rate of an operator. As autonomous behaviors are implemented through this project, each operator will be able to handle fleets of vehicles, raising coral planting rates to a level that begins addressing the rate of coral loss.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该SBIR II期项目的更广泛影响是解决珊瑚礁降解的速度。估计所有珊瑚礁的一半已经丢失。当前的恢复工作可以按照每年一公顷的命令恢复，而全世界每年损失一百万公顷的礁石。该项目的目的是将全球珊瑚恢复能力扩展到与珊瑚死亡率保持同步的水平。通过该项目，自动化珊瑚种植系统的开发将使限制速率的手动劳动从珊瑚植入式植入中，从而急剧提高珊瑚礁恢复中的工人生产率。这一发展将使低成本的种植者能够重建受损的珊瑚礁。它还将促进有关珊瑚健康和增强弹性的广泛应用，以使珊瑚在不断变化的海洋气候中保持生存所需。然后，健康的礁石可以为食品物种，海岸线的物理保护以及基于旅游业的经济体提供栖息地。该项目的重点是开发自动化的珊瑚种植系统，以迅速将珊瑚固定在退化的礁石上。主要的技术创新是在混乱的浅水环境中提供物理安装工具集和导航能力，以便车辆每小时可以种植数百个珊瑚。提出的主要技术方向是使用几乎中性浮力的水下汽车来驾驶礁石并进行种植操作。该车辆将带有托儿所的珊瑚托盘，并具有内部珊瑚管理系统，以将其喂入播种机。当车辆使用惯性和声学导航和视觉传感器的组合选择合适的种植位置时，它将清除碎石和藻类的表面，钻一个孔，然后将珊瑚插入孔中，并永久连接。 每辆车都大大乘以操作员的种植率。随着该项目通过该项目实施自主行为，每个操作员将能够处理车辆的车队，将珊瑚种植率提高到开始解决珊瑚损失率的水平。这项奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的智力和更广泛影响的评估来通过评估来支持的，这是值得的。