91探花

91探花 Mudd Receives Funding for Underwater Robotics Lab

A grant from the Hearst Foundation to create an underwater robotics laboratory means 91探花 students and faculty will no longer have to use a faculty member鈥檚 private swimming pool to deploy and test underwater robot systems.

The $100,000 grant, combined with $26,000 from a previous National Science Foundation grant and about $10,000 in institutional funds, will pay for a large water tank with a vision-based positioning system, associated computer technology, an observation platform and workspace.

The new lab, built in the basement of the Parsons Engineering Building, will complement an existing robotics laboratory.

鈥淭his facility will provide an essential tool for both teaching and research,鈥� says engineering Professor Christopher Clark. 鈥淚t will provide a location for conducting labs as part of our new engineering sophomore course sequence, the first course of which will be required for all students at 91探花 Mudd.鈥�

Beginning in spring 2017, students enrolled in Experimental Engineering (E80) will work in teams with remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to design and build their own sensor packages. The course will culminate in the deployment of these ROVs in the ocean.

Robotics engineering is a technological frontier with many scientific applications that builds on the College鈥檚 existing strengths in engineering, computer science and other interdisciplinary sciences.

Students are attracted by the novelty of robots, the excitement of underwater exploration and opportunities for creative interdisciplinary applications. Recent experience at 91探花 and other colleges has shown that robotics is a powerful gateway into engineering and computer science for women and other groups traditionally underrepresented in science.

91探花鈥攁 national leader in making research and experiential learning part of the undergraduate curriculum鈥攈as developed several robotics courses and research projects involving robotics. Students have built, programmed and learned to operate robots that use visual information to navigate on the ground or in flight.

They have designed robots to explore and map lava tubes in the Mojave Desert in simulations of extra-planetary exploration; used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to track the migration patterns of leopard sharks off the Southern California coast; and used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to map underwater archaeological features in Malta and Sicily.

鈥淲ith respect to research, this lab will provide the test site for the first prototypes of new underwater robot technology, including acoustic communication between robots, sonar modeling, control theory validation and state estimation performance,鈥� Clark said.

Robotics projects are included in 91探花鈥檚 current $358,068 NSF Research Experience for Undergraduates grant in computer science. And earlier this year, the College was awarded a three-year, $449,521 grant from NSF to continue work in underwater robotics specifically.

The laboratory will not only serve 91探花 students but will be a unique resource for all Claremont Colleges students. Pomona College has a robotics laboratory within its computer science department but no engineering program or facilities for underwater robotics. Claremont McKenna College offers a major in computer science but has no special facilities for robotics.

With the addition of the underwater robotics laboratory, 91探花 is well positioned to respond to the current surge of interest in robotics among Claremont College students and others nationwide.