PhD in Computer Science - Intelligent Undersea Vehicles in Orono United States | University of Maine

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are robotic systems that operate without human pilots, playing a growing role in fields like scientific research, environmental monitoring, industrial operations, and defense applications. Current AUV technology faces constraints due to limitations in control systems, restricting them to basic or short-term missions without direct human oversight. The ultimate goal is to develop AUVs capable of executing sophisticated, extended missions independently, which demands cutting-edge (or even groundbreaking) artificial intelligence capabilities.
Multi-AUV coordination systems
Collaborative AUV networks prove particularly valuable for specific tasks, such as collecting synchronized oceanographic data across vast areas (like autonomous ocean monitoring networks) or conducting coordinated mine detection operations. However, these systems present amplified challenges for intelligent control, necessitating advanced techniques from the AI field of multiagent systems research.

UMaine's AUV research initiatives
The University of Maine's School of Computing and Information Science has established expertise in applying artificial intelligence to AUV and multi-AUV control systems. Since 1995, the Maine Software Agents and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (MaineSAIL) has conducted continuous research on intelligent AUV operations, encompassing areas like automated mission planning, adaptive reasoning, emergency response protocols, inter-vehicle communication, dynamic system organization, and task distribution. This research has received support from both the National Science Foundation and the Office of Naval Research. Current projects include involvement with the Maine Center for Autonomous Marine Survey (MCAMS), a cross-disciplinary initiative combining marine science, AUV engineering, and computer science that recently secured $1.3 million in funding from the Maine Technology Institute, along with ongoing partnerships with organizations like the Autonomous Undersea Systems Institute in Lee, New Hampshire.