Project Description:
Project MALLARD is an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) designed to support water-based search, recovery, and surveying operations. Traditional water searches can require significant manpower, time, and equipment while still being limited by visibility, environmental conditions, and human error. MALLARD addresses this problem by combining a floating robotic platform with GPS tracking, sonar depth sensing, bathymetric mapping, and simulation-tested autonomous survey planning. The goal is to provide a safer and more systematic method for surveying bodies of water and generating useful underwater mapping data without requiring search teams to immediately enter potentially unsafe environments.
