CALIFORNIA, Md. – Within the A. James Clark School of Engineering University of Maryland MATRIX Lab at the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland SMART building is the second largest water tunnel in the state of Maryland with a capacity of nearly 18,000 gallons operating at 0.15 m/s (0.49 fps) to 1.50 m/s (4.92 fps).
“Because USMSM has a huge water tunnel we can put our robotic platform inside the water tunnel to do the research we want,” said Wei-Kuo Yen, Maryland Robotics Center postdoc. Pressure sensors and cameras on the robotic fish recognize water movement and the motion of other fish nearby, similar to the sensors on real fish. The robotic fish use the information to school together, and eventually find the most efficient location to travel.
Yen is pictured here recently meeting with a group from Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) to discuss opportunities for collaborative autonomy. Sensor-related research and development has a wide range of applications for both industry and government.
