###Efficient coastal bathymetry survey using multibeam enabled uncrewed surface vehicle
Project ID: 2228bd1198 (You will need this ID for your application)
Research Theme: Engineering
UCL Lead department: Mechanical Engineering
Lead Supervisor: Yuanchang Liu
Project Summary:
The aim of this project is to investigate new robotics assisted methods for improving efficiency in mapping coastal waters, an area where data is typically sparse due to the high costs and difficulties associated with water depth. The importance of accurate and up-to-date bathymetry in the coastal zone has increased tremendously in the last decade with visible impacts of accelerated climate change on coastal dynamics, critical infrastructure, ecosystems, and communities.
This project will be leveraging a recent success of an EPSRC core equipment award, where a multibeam enabled uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) is purchased for efficient coastal bathymetry survey. Using this new USV, the proposed project will be exploring novel planning and control methods to ensure the USV able to autonomously acquire high resolution, full coverage bathymetry and backscatter data in coastal areas by using a multibeam echosounder. Specific research works include: 1) developing a new reliable localisation and mapping method in uncertain coastal areas, 2) developing a novel coverage planning algorithm to ensure all points of a surveyed area are covered in an optimised way and 3) designing a new control algorithm to ensure the USV can maintain its stability under different waves thereby reducing the scanning errors incurred by unstable motions.
By developing critical engineering skills in autonomy and automation, data acquisition, calibration and processing, a next generation marine robotics specialist will be trained from this project. Key research skills including analysis & problem-solving, project management & organization, interpersonal & leadership, written & oral communication, etc. will be trained by the supervision team as well as UCL doctoral school training courses. The project will also be working closely with Port of London Agency, and potential industry supervision and internships opportunities will be provided.