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MRDF’s collaborative partnership with VideoRay, LLC and WebEx Communications, Inc. brings a submersible ROV with advanced capability within reach of many hundreds of diver/aquanauts involved annually in our on-going manned undersea habitat programs … and has recently opened the doorway to very long distance Robotic telepresence.

Long distance robotic telepresence technology once considered the sole domain of
NASA interplanetary probes and rovers, is just now making it into the hands of university researchers and student classrooms around the world. This research and development effort started several years ago between MRDF, Jim Lewis at NASA-Boeing, Dr. Bill Soeffing at the University of Sioux Fall South Dakota, Dr. Brian Howell at Western Carolina University, and the R&D team at VideoRay LLC. It has now been applied to provide students from distant classrooms and labs around the United States and Canada a virtual presence in our manned underwater laboratory, and the ability to control the VideoRay ROV in the seawater lagoon outside the undersea station from thousands of miles away over the internet.

In addition, in 2007 we began working with WebEx Communications, Inc. (now part of Cisco) to create a fast, ultra-reliable, secure, multi-application compatible, internet pipe between our underwater lab and other laboratories and classrooms anywhere in the world. The WebEx solution which provides very high security (used by the US armed services), reliability, and essentially “zero set-up” capability, has made the long distance internet control of the VideoRay ROV and a virtual student presence in the undersea station attractive to school system teachers and their network administrators.  Last year over 248 students and teachers (grades 4-8) from remote classrooms in Pennsylvania and Florida participated in our new “Virtual Mini Adventure Program”, with 49 participants piloting the VideoRay ROV over the internet.

Future plans are to: (1) extend this program to more students and teachers; (2) advance the technical capability of the program by offering more advanced / intuitive submersible ROV internet controllers (such as joystick, head-mounted display , & glove controllers); (3) provide state-of-the-art high speed internet connections to reduce control lag; (4) use internet control of the VideoRay ROV to deploy, observe, actuate and maintain student designed project / instrument packages around the undersea lab, analogous to the deployment of instrument packages in the deep ocean or deep space; and (5) invite the high tech community (such as  Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, ect...) to participate in program support and the implementation of recent technological developments to accelerate the very exciting future of human/robotic telepresence, and inspire the creative imaginations of the next generation of explorers, scientists, engineers, and technicians.

* If you would like to participate in this program contact Chris Olstad at chris@mrdf.org.

* For more detailed information see:
Remote Operation of ROV’s over the Internet for Education and Research,
        Chris Olstad (MRDF) and Tom Glebas (VideoRay); published in Proceedings,
Underwater Intervention 2008.

Posted May 2008

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MRDF joins Underwater Explorations Team AURORA, local Archeologists, and a leading Robotics Expert to Explore Ancient Fortress Cisterns on the Mediterranean Island of Malta.

The submersible ROV called VideoRay, used regularly for the past few years in MRDF’s manned underwater habitat programs by divers and aquanauts, has twice been called into foreign service with its operator to the faraway island of Malta because of its ultra-small size and advanced capabilities.

This cistern mapping project was initiated by Dr. Timmy Gambin, Director of Archeology at the Aurora Special Purposes Trust. Other investigators include Chris Olstad, Habitat Operations Director at Marine Resources Development Foundation (shown in photo at left); Keith Bugahiar of the University of Malta; and Dr. Christopher Clark of California Polytechnic State University.

Located in the middle of the Mediterranean and blessed with many natural deepwater ports, Malta has been a central way-point for seafaring trade since the beginning of recorded maritime history. Due to its strategic location along these ancient shipping routes and the great wealth associated with this, the island was constantly under siege by pirates and any ambitious empire of the day. As result many fortresses and watch towers were built around the island in preparation for the almost constant threat of invasion. The islander’s last strong-hold during an all-out invasion was usually a fortress located towards the middle of the island at its highest point, and it was built to withstand a siege by an invading army for years. In this relatively arid climate large underground cisterns, natural or man-made, were needed to sustain the community’s drinking water within a fortress under siege for extended periods of time.

VideoRay’s mission was to explore these ancient submerged underground cistern chambers and passageways while extracting video and sonar data which could later be used by archeologists to enhance their understanding of the evolution and complexity of ancient water storage systems in Malta. The VideoRay ROV is uniquely suited to this task since the entryways and long narrow chutes leading down into these cisterns (averaging about 14 inches in diameter) are much too narrow and dangerous for today’s average size human, and excavation techniques to access these submerged structures would be destructive and damaging to historically valuable sites. Some of these cisterns are believed to have been used at least as far back as 2,300 years ago and have likely been unseen by human eyes for many, many, centuries. Rumor has it that sometimes a community’s wealth would be hidden deep within these cisterns to keep it away from pirates and invading armies.

For a more detailed accounting of the these cistern explorations which includes photos, video clips, sonar and mapping algorithm data, and on-going analysis / commentary by the investigators, go to Dr. Christopher Clark’s website. Also, there is a good article on Hydro International's site.