The Aqua family of vehicles are part on an ongoing set of research projects at McGill University and York University. The vehicles are designed and built at McGill University and a portable stereo sensing system is under ongoing development at York.

Over almost a decade of related research projects, funding has come from several agencies.

The AQUA project explores the science and technologies for the interpretation of underwater video footage, the identification of underwater features, human-robot interaction, the modeling of 3-D scenes using vision and acoustics, vehicle control, position estimation and mechanical design. Key applications for AQUA are the assesment of marine habitats and biodiversity on coral reefs. By using a robot, we hope several important classes of measurement can be made much more reliable. Trials of this application are ongoing.

A commercially-available offshoot of this family of vehicles are available from Independent Robotics Inc.

 

 

 

 

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