Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Reef Rover: A Low-Cost Small Autonomous Unmanned Surface Vehicle (Usv) For Mapping And Monitoring Coral Reefs, George Raber, Steven R. Schill

Faculty Publications

In the effort to design a more repeatable and consistent platform to collect data for Structure from Motion (SfM) monitoring of coral reefs and other benthic habitats, we explore the use of recent advances in open source Global Positioning System (GPS)-guided drone technology to design and test a low-cost and transportable small unmanned surface vehicle (sUSV). The vehicle operates using Ardupilot open source software and can be used by local scientists and marine managers to map and monitor marine environments in shallow areas (<20>m) with commensurate visibility. The imaging system uses two Sony a6300 mirrorless cameras to collect stereo …