Capstone Course - Environmental Awareness in Maritime Doman

	Enviromental Awareness In the Maritime Domain Fall 2014 – Spring 2015 Course 2.013/2.014, 16.82 The Mechanical Engineering and Aero/Astro Engineering departments are collaborating to design, build, and demonstrate an integrated system to enable long-endurance surveillance operations in marine environments. The key elements of this novel system are deployable power pod and autonomous seaplane. By providing power and communications to the seaplane, the power pod significantly extends the duration of surveillance operations in support search and rescue, marine life and environmental monitoring, border patrol, and naval operations.
	Enviromental Awareness In the Maritime Domain Fall 2014 – Spring 2015 Course 2.013/2.014, Students in the Mechanical Engineering Capstone Course designed a deployable “blue water” resupply system.  Networks of latent semisubmersible pods will operate autonomously in a marine environment and provide power and communications links to significantly extend the duration of maritime surveillance operations. Each pod includes a power source, buoyance control system, docking station, and satellite communication link. Pods are deployed from surface ships, and hibernate below the surface until activated by an underwater communication signal. Once activated, pods surface and deploy a docking station to recharge and download data from UAVS, and then transmit data to remote stations via satellite communications. The design for this system was completed in the fall 2014 semester, and students plan to build and demonstrate this novel capability in the spring 2015 semester.
	Enviromental Awareness In the Maritime Domain Fall 2014 – Spring 2015 Course 16.82 Students in the Aero/Astro Capstone Course designed a novel autonomous seaplane to perform long-endurance surveillance operations. The duration of conventional small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) missions is typically limited to a few hours by the capacity of their onboard power systems. To significantly extend operations, students designed a UAV that can land on the sea surface, dock with a floating resupply station, recharge onboard batteries, transfer surveillance data, and takeoff from the sea surface to continue airborne operations. Some of the advanced systems in the UAV include autonomous navigation and docking payloads, rotating pontoons, and an onboard recharging system. The design for this system was completed in the fall 2014 semester, and students plan to build and demonstrate this novel capability in the spring 2015 semester.