News Releases

NARRAGANSETT, RI. -- Rhode Island Governor Donald Carcieri’s Science and Technology Advisory Council (STAC) announced the first round of recipients for its Rhode Island Research Alliance Collaborative Research Award program.  The program is part of a $1.5 million effort to grow research and development capacity in the state, address critical problems of Rhode Islanders, and spur economic development.  Eoin Howlett and Matt Ward, scientists from Narragansett based, Applied Science Associates, Inc. (ASA), were selected along with 30 other scientists from 15 research organizations across Rhode Island to receive funding.

Winners of this inaugural competitive award program include academic and industry scientists pursuing projects in medicine, engineering, chemistry, biology, oceanography and environmental science.  Priority was given to high-impact projects that are collaborative across Rhode Island institutions and well positioned to receive follow-on funding, particularly from federal agencies. 

A joint academic-industry partnership, ASA’s scientists are teamed with Dr. Alfred Hanson, Principal Investigator and President of SubChem Systems, Inc, as well as researchers from WET Labs, Inc. and University of Rhode Island, to demonstrate how multiple types of robotic or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) with multi-sensor payloads and smart sampling systems can be integrated for surveillance of real-time coastal observations and analysis.  This collaboration combines ASA, WET Labs, and SubChem Systems--key commercial systems providers with academic researchers at University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography in a collaborative partnership to demonstrate the utility and feasibility of operating a fully distributed, real-time ocean observation system within Narragansett Bay.

 This network will allow the team to access data from these systems in real-time, modify sampling and operating instructions in real-time, and allow different types of autonomous systems to communicate with each other. The real-time wireless underwater sensor network will be interfaced with ASA’s COASTMAP, a globally re-locatable, integrated system for real time monitoring, modeling and data distribution for shelf, coastal sea and estuarine waters, for rapid data processing, display, analysis, archiving, and World Wide Web distribution to end users.

With Research Alliance funding, the collaborators will extend the application of COASTMAP to allow for the collection, fusion, display, and analysis of data from underwater sensing systems including both stationary and those mounted on a wide variety of oceanographic sampling platforms. The real-time coastal observation system and integrated technologies will be demonstrated in Narragansett Bay and used to investigate recurrent oxygen-depletion events that have resulted in fish and shellfish kills during the summer months.

This proposed project will also allow the industry partners to effectively collaborate on the integration of their respective commercial products into a new commercial system for continuous real-time coastal ocean observation. The project will allow URI to continue to provide unique opportunities for researchers and students in the oceanography and ocean engineering disciplines to conduct research with contemporary autonomous sampling platforms, sensors, networking and data management and informational technologies.

“This Research Alliance Collaborative program is about supporting world-class research,” Governor Carcieri said.  “It’s about investing in an innovation economy for Rhode Island.” 

“We are very grateful to be recognized among such a talented scientific landscape and supported by the State for this project…”  ASA’s Matt Ward remarks, “…this cutting edge project perfectly represents what ASA has come to specialize in, as well as working in a collaborative process that we are completely adapted to.”

For more information about the Science and Technology Advisory Council, visit http://www.stac.ri.gov.

 

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