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Aquaticus - Project Schedule Outline
Phase 1: July 2015 - December 2015:
- Initial physical setup of the vehicle platforms, the MOKAI and Kingfisher M200 and in-water tests.
- Competition development in simulation.
- Inter-vehicle comms including shoreside-vehicle radio setup, human-operator comms to shoreside, and human-to-robot comms via voice recognition.
- COLREGS collision avoidance for safe control of the robots.
- COLREGS violation detection for ensuring safe human operation.
Phase 2A: December 2015 - April 2016:
- Simulation experimentation with human testers.
- Further refinement of the competition structure based on feedback from human tests.
- Further refinement of competition software (Tag and Flag management, COLREGS oversight).
- Recruitment of Beta teams for summer experimentation.
Phase 2B: May 2016 - September 2016:
- First in-water Beta competitions at MIT Marine Autonomy Lab at the MIT Sailing Pavilion.
- The goal is to have weekly in-water competitions with a rapid test-observe-modify cycle. Iterating to a viable competition format and structure.
Phase 2C: October 2016 - December 2016:
- Full evaluation of summer experimentaion, documentation and paper-writing.
- Preparation of external-facing website inviting outside competition during the summer of 2017.
- Further re-structure of software or rule structures if needed based on evaluations from the summer.
Phase 3: 2017:
- Advertise and recruit for first competitions during summer 2017.
- Identify small number of external (non-MIT) groups for Beta competitions.
- Hold first competitions (July-August).
- Re-evaluation and adjust.
Phase 4: 2018:
- Full external competition for anyone wanting to participate.
- Will need to develop a plan for pre-competition down-select if numbers high.