Offshore Mission Recovered by Paddle Board and ATV!
The Scibotics Lab has been working on being nimble and ship-free as part of their rapid-response expertise with long-range AUV technologies and capabilities. Last week they launched Polaris, their under-ice LRAUV from a small boat and it surveyed near the shelfbreak 150 km from shore unattended. It ran an adaptive sampling 2D front tracking algorithm in collaboration with MBARI, NSF and DHS to map out in three-dimensions salinity intrusion features. Polaris swam back to Woods Hole, navigating around islands and shoals where it was recovered by a paddle board and yanked out of the water with an ATV powered boat trailer from the beach!