The B.o.B. Buoy

Our main focus is a universally stable vehicle capable of following simple coordinate based directions for self-positioning. Once successful, the design will be replicated in order to perform as a network of self-assembling buoys connected via a homogeneous mesh network.

Each buoy will make independent decisions based on the globally and locally available data in order to more rapidly advance the environmental picture wherein the buoys navigate and investigate. These are the first steps to a Distributed-Computational Fluid Dynamics (D-CFD) environment, in which computations are heterogeneously spread across the network, reducing the overall computational demands on any given node, while simultaneously developing global understanding.

Student POC:

  • Brandon Zoss (bzoss@mit.edu)
  • Grgur Tokic