STTR Phase I: Low-Cost Autonomous Sailboats for Long-Term Ocean Missions

STTR 第一阶段：用于长期海洋任务的低成本自主帆船

• 批准号: 2213250
• 负责人: Jason Cortell
• 金额: $ 24.84万
• 依托单位: DYNAMIC LOCOMOTION, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-15 至 2024-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2213250&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: STTR; Phase; Low; Cost; Autonomous

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project is the development of new technologies to facilitate ocean data collection. Understanding the oceans is important for climate research, naval operations, maritime domain awareness, and ecosystem preservation, yet traditional data collection methods using research ships, commercial vessels, and buoys are cumbersome, expensive, and limited in their scope of discovery. While satellites have enabled remote data collection, they are affected by weather and limited in the types of data they collect. Uncrewed Surface Vessels (USVs) - robotic boats - are promising, but even today’s smallest oceangoing USVs are too costly for many applications. Thus, many regions of Earth’s oceans are rarely studied. The technology developed here aims to meet this need by enabling low-cost deployment of sensor-equipped robotic fleets. Better access to ocean data may improve understanding of the ocean and its resources, leading to better climate modeling, improved safety, economic gains, and more effective regulations. Further, ocean monitoring and surveillance is key to understanding ocean water quality, identifying contaminants, and devising strategies to prevent future contamination and pollution of the ocean’s waters. Ultimately, cost-effective oceanic data collection may help sustain and grow the ocean economy.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project aims to develop a small, low-cost, autonomous robotic sailboat that uses an innovative sail arrangement and weather-optimized navigation system. With a combination of affordability and utility, the technology represents a new approach for widespread oceanic data collection. This technology can be deployed virtually anywhere in the ocean, can be small (2 meters or less), and is 100% wind- and solar-powered. The research in this project seeks to further this technology by advancing two innovations: passive directional stability and weather-optimized navigation. Unlike most other robotic sailboats, the proposed USV does not need active steering to hold a course, once set. Further, the proposed USV has a navigation system that exploits the spatial and temporal variance in the weather and uses local weather data to direct the boats to navigate more efficiently. This STTR proposal seeks to address areas of high technical risk including stability of the steering system under various wind and water conditions, resistance to traveling excessively downwind during storms, effectiveness of the optimized navigation system in both actual and simulated weather conditions at locations worldwide, construction and performance of prototypes in lakes and oceans, and long-term resistance to marine environments.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.

该小型企业技术转移（STTR）I期项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发新技术以促进海洋数据收集。了解海洋对于气候研究，海军作战，海上领域的意识和生态系统的准备很重要，但是使用研究船，商业船只和浮标的传统数据收集方法繁琐，昂贵，并且在发现范围内有限。虽然卫星已经启用了远程数据收集，但它们受到天气的影响，并且收集的数据类型有限。承诺未拧干的地表船（USV） - 机器人船，但即使今天，最小的Oceano USV对于许多应用来说太昂贵了。因此，地球海洋的许多地区很少研究。这里开发的技术旨在通过实现配备传感器的机器人士的低成本部署来满足这一需求。更好地获取海洋数据可以改善对海洋及其资源的了解，从而改善气候建模，改善安全性，经济增长和更有效的监管。此外，海洋监测和监视是了解海水质量，确定污染物以及制定策略以防止对海洋水域的污染和污染的策略的关键。最终，具有成本效益的海洋数据收集可能有助于维持和发展海洋经济。这个小型企业技术转移（STTR）I期项目旨在开发一种小型，低成本的机器人帆船，该帆船使用创新的帆布置和天气优化的导航系统。该技术结合了负担能力和实用性，代表了一种新的宽度海洋数据收集方法。该技术几乎可以在海洋中的任何地方部署，可以很小（2米或更少），并且是100％的风能和太阳能动力。该项目的研究旨在通过推进两项创新来进一步进一步：被动定向稳定性和天气优化的导航。与大多数其他机器人帆船不同，拟议的USV不需要主动转向即可握住一门课程。此外，拟议的USV具有一个导航系统，可利用天气中的空间和临时差异，并使用当地天气数据来指导船只更有效地导航。这项STTR提案旨在解决高技术风险的领域，包括在各种风和水条件下转向系统的稳定性，在暴风雨中极度向下行驶，在全球实际和模拟天气状况中优化导航系统在全球范围内，优化的导航系统的有效性，在全球范围内的构建和模拟的天气状况，在湖泊和海洋中的原型和海洋的长期抵制以及对海洋环境的长期抵制，这是对niss的长期抵制。基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。