The Boston Harbor Robo-Challenge

Lockheed Martin and Battelle Maritime Systems and Technologies

The goal of this project is to enable the fully autonomous transit of an unmanned surface vessel from the Charles River at MIT, through Boston Harbor and finally out into Mass Bay for a several day mission of ocean sampling. This includes a fully autonomous return. A high level map of the route is shown in Figure 1. A simulated motor boat transit is shown here: https://vimeo.com/182547565. This project involves the MIT SeaGrant WAM-V USV which is also the main platform for the MIT SeaGrant Reef Explorer Project.

Figure 1: The robot path from the MIT Sailing Pavilion to Mass Bay through Boston Harbor.

Principal Investigators:

  • Michael Benjamin
  • Henrik Schmidt

MIT Sea Grant Collaborators:

  • Mike Defilippo
  • Mike Sacarny
  • Paul Robinette

Students:

  • Greg Nannig