Abstract
There has been a steady increase in the deployment of autonomous underwater and surface vehicles (AUVs and ASVs) for applications such as ocean monitoring, tracking of marine processes, and underwater hazardous waste mitigation. The underwater environment poses unique challenges since robots must operate in a communication and localization-limited environment where their dynamics are tightly coupled with the environmental dynamics. This talk presents ongoing efforts in the development of a control framework for distributed autonomous sensing and tracking of geophysical fluid dynamics. By better understanding the impact of geophysical fluid dynamics on underwater vehicle control and autonomy, one can better exploit the environmental dynamics to develop more efficient control and coordination strategies for networks of AUVs/ASVs operating in the ocean.
 

Bio
M. Ani Hsieh is an Assistant Professor in the Mechanical Engineering & Mechanics Department at Drexel University. She received a B.S. in Engineering and B.A. in Economics from Swarthmore College in 1999 and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2007. Her current work bridges the gap between nonlinear dynamical systems theory, transport theory, and distributed control of many robot system. She was a 2011 ONR Summer Faculty Fellow, a recipient of the 2012 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, and was awarded a 2013 National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER Award.