AUV guidance with chemical signals

A great variety of marine animals navigate using chemical signals to locate food sources, mates and spawning grounds. The sensory systems and behaviors exhibited by these animals are well adapted for robust operations in turbulent and chemically complex environments. The algorithms used by an animal to rapidly extract guidance information from a discontinuous and complex chemical signal are presently unknown and are the topic of current research. We have developed a small benthic robot that is being used as an algorithm test bed for ideas in biological chemosensing behavior. The robot is designed to mimic the basic features of a lobster relevant to chemical sensing and associated behaviors. We present the rational for this research, the design of the vehicle and initial results.