Monitoring Underwater Sensors with an Amphibious Robot

The underwater domain provides a wide range of potential applications for autonomous systems. Sessile (im-mobile) sensor platforms can provide a sensing network to monitor a range of different underwater events. Monitoring such networks can be a challenge, however, as the sensor nodes can be difficult to monitor and the nature of the medium limits wireless communication. Here we describe an approach that uses an autonomous underwater vehicle to monitor the state of sessile sensors. A visual communication channel is established from the sensor node to the robot that can then communicate the state of the sensor to an underwater-or surface-based operator. This paper describes the basic approach and results of preliminary experiments.