About Me

I am an Electrical Engineering major at the University of Central Florida, set to graduate in May 2010. My advisor for the REU was Dr. Marshall Tappen.

I joined the Robotics Club at UCF and began working on the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) team during the fall semester of 2008. The AUV was designed to compete in AUVSI and ONR's 12th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition. With the start of the REU, I shifted my focus from the electronic components of the vehicle to the vision algorithms needed for the mission.

At this year's competition, our vehicle, Citronaut, garnered fourth place out of 31 teams. Five countries were represented at the 2009 competition: USA, Canada, Japan, South Korea and India. The UCF team is already looking forward to participating in 2010.

Research Abstract

The world of underwater robotics presents many challenges not considered in above-surface systems. Without access to tools such as GPS, and excluding expensive options such as Doppler Velocity Logs, the most logical mode of navigation in an aqueous environment is vision. In this project, two cameras (one forward and one downward) were implemented to accomplish six tasks for AUVSI and ONR's 12th International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition.


Presentations