MIT Libraries homeDSpace@MIT

Sea ice thickness has long been an under-measured quantity, even in the satellite era. The snow surface elevation, which is far easier to measure, cannot be directly converted into sea ice thickness estimates without ...

Three-dimensional maps of underwater scenes are critical to-or the desired end product of-many applications, spanning a spectrum of spatial scales. Examples range from inspection of subsea infrastructure to hydrographic ...

The satellite ocean color remote sensing paradigm developed by government space agencies enables the assessment of ocean color products on global scales at kilometer resolutions. A similar paradigm has not yet been developed ...

Over the past few years there has been a new wave of interest in fully autonomous robots operating in the real world, with applications from autonomous driving to search and rescue. These robots are expected to operate at ...

This dissertation presents three separate-but related-contributions to the art of underwater navigation. These methods may be used in postprocessing with a human in the loop, but the overarching goal is to enhance vehicle ...

Much of the recent research in ocean acoustics has focused on developing methods to exploit the effects that the sea surface and seafloor have on acoustic propagation. Many of those methods require detailed knowledge of ...

This thesis introduces an algorithm for inverting for the geoacoustic properties of the seafloor in shallow water. The input data required by the algorithm are estimates of the amplitudes of the normal modes excited by a ...

This research presents a parallel hypothesis method for autonomous underwater vehicle navigation that enables a vehicle to expand the operating envelope of existing long baseline acoustic navigation systems by incorporating ...

Sampling the vast volumes of the ocean requires tools capable of observing from a distance while retaining detail necessary for biology and ecology, ideal for optical methods. Algorithms that work with existing SeaBED AUV ...

Real-time cooperation between autonomous vehicles can enable time-critical missions such as tracking and pursuit of a dynamic target or environmental feature, but relies on wireless communications. Underwater, communication ...