Students developing autonomous boats through Trine, Crane challenge
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Trine University in Angola and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division are teaming up on an initiative to develop autonomous low-profile vessels, or LPVs, and Indiana students are at the forefront.
The Artificial Intelligence Maritime Maneuver Indiana Collegiate Challenge will see teams from six Indiana higher education institutions work to make the LPVs fully autonomous at a low cost—under $12,000.
The program was launched thanks to $5 million in federal funding secured by Congressman Jim Banks, R-3, in 2021.
Jason Blume, assistant vice president of Innovation One at Trine, told Inside INdiana Business the idea stemmed from a desire to expand the university’s relationship with Crane.
“We have had a long recruiting relationship with NSWC Crane, that a number of our pre-career engineers go there for internships or employment, and how can we really grow that momentum and build upon that that foundational piece?” Blume said. “We were guided to put together a proposal that then Congressman Banks could put forward to his committee, that we would like to find a outlet for us to really work to showcase the modest-sized institution, being able to work on projects at a larger scale and really grow that relationship.”
After the funding was secured, Trine and Crane came up with a plan for undergraduate students at Trine to construct an LPV that was modeled after a drug boat that was captured off the Florida Keys.
The students worked with a group of Midshipmen from the U.S. Naval Academy last summer to come up with a design that could be easily replicated at a low cost point.
“The purpose of it was to build a budget-conscious design and a manufacturing plan so that it could be easily reproduced,” Blume said.
Six prototype LPVs were built and provided to the six schools participating in the challenge. In addition to Trine, those schools are Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Indiana University, Purdue University in West Lafayette, Purdue Fort Wayne, and the University of Notre Dame.
In addition to the boats, the teams also received sensor packages and propulsion systems to help make the vessels autonomous. Each team received a $40,000 stipend for the program, though they were limited to only spending $5,000 on additional materials for their boats.
“They are then designing solutions for a eight-point design competition that ranges from guiding the boat through a colored buoy slalom course to search-and-rescue to sensor deployment and communication,” Blume said.
The purpose of the challenge, according to Crane, is to showcase how these LPVs could be made for a variety of mission types, including supply deliveries, stealth missions and locator purposes.
The challenge will culminate with a two-day event in late April at Pokagon State Park that will feature each team demonstrating their autonomous LPVs. The event will also include a STEM day where K-12 students will be brought in from throughout the state to learn about the challenge.
But an unexpected benefit has already come from the challenge: the creation of a career pipeline. Blume said five students involved in the program have already accepted jobs at NSWC Crane, the majority of whom are from out of state.
Major Amy Ross, government lead for the AIMM program at NSWC Crane, said the career opportunities that have come from the challenge happened organically.
“It’s neat because they’ve gotten to see firsthand what we do at Crane,” Ross said. “They’ve gotten to come down they’ve gotten to visit, and so it creates that unique partnership where we can leverage what they’re doing in the schools, but then they can take exactly what they’ve learned, and come apply it to the Department of Defense.”
Even before the competition takes place in April, both Crane and Trine are already looking at expanding the program.
“We’re hoping that next year, we’re able to expand it to the entire Midwest Defense Corridor,” Ross said. “The other idea with this challenge is that it does target those rural schools, those smaller schools that maybe don’t have as much experience working with the Department of Defense, and so we’re able to kind of reach out to them and include them in this kind of a challenge.”
You can learn more about the Artificial Intelligence Maritime Maneuver Indiana Collegiate Challenge by clicking here.