Efficient Multi-Robot Coverage of a Known Environment

This paper addresses the complete area coverage problem of a known environment by multiple-robots. Complete area coverage is the problem of moving an end-effector over all available space while avoiding existing obstacles. In such tasks, using multiple robots can increase the efficiency of the area coverage in terms of minimizing the operational time and increase the robustness in the face of robot attrition. Unfortunately, the problem of finding an optimal solution for such an area coverage problem with multiple robots is known to be NP-complete. In this paper we present two approximation heuristics for solving the multi-robot coverage problem. The first solution presented is a direct extension of an efficient single robot area coverage algorithm, based on an exact cellular decomposition. The second algorithm is a greedy approach that divides the area into equal regions and applies an efficient single-robot coverage algorithm to each region. We present experimental results for two algorithms. Results indicate that our approaches provide good coverage distribution between robots and minimize the workload per robot, meanwhile ensuring complete coverage of the area.Comment: In proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 201

OysterNet: Enhanced Oyster Detection Using Simulation

Oysters play a pivotal role in the bay living ecosystem and are considered the living filters for the ocean. In recent years, oyster reefs have undergone major devastation caused by commercial over-harvesting, requiring preservation to maintain ecological balance. The foundation of this preservation is to estimate the oyster density which requires accurate oyster detection. However, systems for accurate oyster detection require large datasets obtaining which is an expensive and labor-intensive task in underwater environments. To this end, we present a novel method to mathematically model oysters and render images of oysters in simulation to boost the detection performance with minimal real data. Utilizing our synthetic data along with real data for oyster detection, we obtain up to 35.1% boost in performance as compared to using only real data with our OysterNet network. We also improve the state-of-the-art by 12.7%. This shows that using underlying geometrical properties of objects can help to enhance recognition task accuracy on limited datasets successfully and we hope more researchers adopt such a strategy for hard-to-obtain datasets

Whale Detection Enhancement through Synthetic Satellite Images

With a number of marine populations in rapid decline, collecting and analyzing data about marine populations has become increasingly important to develop effective conservation policies for a wide range of marine animals, including whales. Modern computer vision algorithms allow us to detect whales in images in a wide range of domains, further speeding up and enhancing the monitoring process. However, these algorithms heavily rely on large training datasets, which are challenging and time-consuming to collect particularly in marine or aquatic environments. Recent advances in AI however have made it possible to synthetically create datasets for training machine learning algorithms, thus enabling new solutions that were not possible before. In this work, we present a solution - SeaDroneSim2 benchmark suite, which addresses this challenge by generating aerial, and satellite synthetic image datasets to improve the detection of whales and reduce the effort required for training data collection. We show that we can achieve a 15% performance boost on whale detection compared to using the real data alone for training, by augmenting a 10% real data. We open source both the code of the simulation platform SeaDroneSim2 and the dataset generated through it

An Autonomous Surface Vehicle for Long Term Operations

Environmental monitoring of marine environments presents several challenges: the harshness of the environment, the often remote location, and most importantly, the vast area it covers. Manual operations are time consuming, often dangerous, and labor intensive. Operations from oceanographic vessels are costly and limited to open seas and generally deeper bodies of water. In addition, with lake, river, and ocean shoreline being a finite resource, waterfront property presents an ever increasing valued commodity, requiring exploration and continued monitoring of remote waterways. In order to efficiently explore and monitor currently known marine environments as well as reach and explore remote areas of interest, we present a design of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) with the power to cover large areas, the payload capacity to carry sufficient power and sensor equipment, and enough fuel to remain on task for extended periods. An analysis of the design and a discussion on lessons learned during deployments is presented in this paper.Comment: In proceedings of MTS/IEEE OCEANS, 2018, Charlesto

OysterSim: Underwater Simulation for Enhancing Oyster Reef Monitoring

Oysters are the living vacuum cleaners of the oceans. There is an exponential decline in the oyster population due to over-harvesting. With the current development of the automation and AI, robots are becoming an integral part of the environmental monitoring process that can be also utilized for oyster reef preservation. Nevertheless, the underwater environment poses many difficulties, both from the practical - dangerous and time consuming operations, and the technical perspectives - distorted perception and unreliable navigation. To this end, we present a simulated environment that can be used to improve oyster reef monitoring. The simulated environment can be used to create photo-realistic image datasets with multiple sensor data and ground truth location of a remotely operated vehicle(ROV). Currently, there are no photo-realistic image datasets for oyster reef monitoring. Thus, we want to provide a new benchmark suite to the underwater community