The Great Lakes Research Center at
Michigan Technological University has a new underwater robotic vehicle.
The center's scientists and students will be using the Iver 3, a third-generation autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, to explore the Great Lakes, including the Keweenaw Waterway and the Straits of Mackinac.
The AUV can go where divers can't, and also can perform underwater surveys more efficiently and at greater length. GLRC director Guy Meadows says they plan to use it to understand Straits currents, among other things.
Tech professor Nina Mahmoudian, an expert on autonomous robots, is working with the center to allow Iver 3 to track long underwater structures like pipelines and communications cables or water intakes. In fact, researchers tried this capability out already this fall, scanning the Enbridge pipelines in the Straits of Mackinac. The result was high-resolution sonar scans in a matter of hours that should make inspection of the pipelines much easier. Further scanning research is being supported by
Enbridge to improve their inspection process and make inspections more frequent.
Meadows also says the robot has vast educational potential for Michigan Tech graduate and undergraduate students for a variety of projects.
"Whether it’s tracking underwater features or mapping trout spawning beds, we can do this all much more precisely and in much greater detail than was ever possible," he says.
Writer: Sam Eggleston
Source: Michigan Technological University
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