Robots with names like SeaBeaver and Blue Boat work in the water to collect data and solve environmental problems.

The tech was the star of the inaugural autonomous systems bootcamp showcase, held Aug. 7 at the University of Delaware's Hugh R. Sharp Marine Studies Campus in Lewes.

The event was the culmination of a weeklong bootcamp that brought together students, faculty, agency researchers, industry representatives and a few high school teachers.

They were split into teams to take on a series of five missions to learn the ins and outs of using autonomous robotic systems to accomplish cutting-edge environmental research, according to Chris Petrone, Delaware Sea Grant Marine Advisory Service director, who coordinated the showcase.

Dr. Tracy DeLiberty, interim dean of the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, said the bootcamp gives students opportunities they can't get anywhere else.

"They are getting real-world experience, technical skills, hands-on stuff they can't get in a classroom," she said. "Their work is done across disciplines, working with computer scientists, marine scientists. That's what's really cool about bootcamp."

The data collected by the autonomous vehicles is used by private companies and government agencies for environmental and energy needs.

It is an important component of the blue economy, which capitalizes on Lewes' proximity to the water.

The SeaBeaver team used its autonomous underwater vehicle to scan the Broadkill River. The SeaBeaver was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the side-scan sonar module it uses was developed at UD.

"Having six or seven people in the same room working on this all week was a huge accelerator for this," said Josh Lewis, a PhD student at UD. "We actually got some sub-sea ripples and started analyzing the data, so that was a huge win for this project."

One team demonstrated the JaiaBot Hydro in the Roosevelt Inlet basin. They dropped four of the red, torpedo-shaped robots into the water and let them do their thing.

"We're going to be doing a ballet dance on the surface," said Dr. Bert Tanner, professor at UD College of Engineering, chair of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and director of the Center for Autonomous and Robotic Systems. 

The four torpedoes formed a square to calibrate a sensor network to measure water temperature and salinity.

Another team showed off a Blue Boat that allowed them to carry various sensors and sonars to scan the seafloor.

"We worked with four Blue Boats the entire week," said Lily Lamb of Integer Technologies. "They can talk to each other and cover a larger area in a shorter amount of time, scanning for wildlife and objects on the ocean floor."

Delaware Sea Grant has been using side-scan technology in the real world, searching for and retrieving the estimated 30,000 ghost crab pots that litter the Inland Bays.

Brittany Haywood, a Delaware Sea Grant coastal ecology specialist, said they are using technology that came out of last year's bootcamp.

"[They] developed Ghost Vision, which is software that takes information and then automatically finds the crab pots and turns them into points on a map, so they don't have to go through and find them by hand," Haywood said.

Haywood said they have recovered 540 derelict pots so far.

Delaware Sea Grant will do its next annual crab pot roundup Sept. 22-23.