Communication Wins! Updates from the Technology Integration Challenge

The teams aboard E/V Nautilus are happy to share some successes of the last few days during this OECI Technology Integration cruise. DriX has successfully communicated with Mesobot, NUI, and the ship itself and acted as a relay for both sending and receiving messages. This is a big win since a key objective of this expedition is coordinating the autonomous vehicles and the ship. The first step of that process is getting them to speak in the same language via their acoustic modems.

This is the ‘crawl’ phase towards our vision of coordinated robotic operations where a vehicle like DriX can ‘babysit’ underwater AUVs, thus freeing up its mothership for other missions like ROV dives or deepwater mapping. In the coming days, we’re hoping to take this a step forward as DriX maps the seafloor east of Maui, and attempts to relay that mission to NUI for further investigation. Stand by for more!

Learn more about this expedition funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute.