Eco-Dolphin: Underwater Research Fleet

Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) has been developing of a fleet of underwater research vessels shaped as dolphins for the study of ocean floors and lagoons. The name of this underwater research platform is Eco-Dolphin. They are shaped as Dolphins to avoid causing offense to the wild life. The latest Eco-Dolphin in construction will be using a ballast attitude control unit to be able to shift its center of gravity. This innovation will allow it to utilize the forward thrust provided by the engines to climb, descend, and maintain depth. A recent achievement of this project occurred last February, when the SIAM team demonstrated the capabilities of the Eco-dolphins to delegates of the US Air Force Research Lab (AFRL). This successful demonstration showcased the swarm algorithm that the Eco-dolphins use to communicate themselves while underwater, and ground station

Aerobridge Providing Multiple Access Points to Aircraft Vehicle

The ingress and egress of passenger on commercial airplanes is an issue that warrants attention. Having a single point of entry and exit on planes restricts the flow of passengers to and from their seats. Varying fuselage length with varying placement of cabin doors requires a system that allows for flexibility in allowing for multiple entry and exit points along the aircraft at varying linear distances. Aerobridge Providing Multiple Access Points to Aircraft Vehicle (patent pending), is a Passenger Boarding Bridge which presents a novel approach to tackling this pesky issue. It is designed to dock with an airplane in such a way that passengers can enter or exit the plane simultaneously via multiple doors located before, above and after the wing-root of aircrafts thereby, allowing for a faster and more efficient boarding/deplaning process. Using this jetway, airlines will achieve optimum utilization of their airplanes, experience tremendous increased profits and efficiency, and ultimately, improve the ingress/egress experience for their passengers

Eco-Dolphin – Cooperative Fleet for Surveillance Mission

The Society for Industrial & Applied Mathematics (SIAM) student chapter at ERAU has been working on the design, construction and testing of three highly integrated and streamlined autonomous underwater vehicles, called Eco-Dolphins. The multidisciplinary team provides hands on research experience to members through Analysis, Computation and Experimentation (ACE). The Leverage lab is used to conduct preliminary research on electrical and mechanical systems. The engineering composites lab is utilized for the fabrication of Eco-Dolphins. Underwater experiments are conducted in the Universities Nonlinear Wave lab. The Blue Eco-Dolphin’s manufacturing phase will be completed by the summer of 2014, for testing in littoral waters, of central Florida. The three sequential (yellow, blue, and red) vehicles allow for accurate navigation data to be sent, a unique buoy network. The combined fleet shall cooperatively fulfill multitask missions, through advanced surveillance and environmental monitoring. The Eco-Dolphins promise will be a unique, highly optimized and a competitive underwater vehicle fleet