Northwestern Michigan College (NMC) and its Great Lakes Water Studies Institute (GLWSI) are entering into a new alliance with Grand Valley State University (GVSU) and the University of Notre Dame to develop a first-of-its-kind training program “focused on artificial-intelligence-enabled deployment of autonomous underwater vehicles.” The partnership was made possible by a three-year, $873,634 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and represents a level-up for NMC in multiple ways, according to GLWSI Director John Lutchko.

Stuart Jones, executive director of GVSU’s Annis Water Resources Institute, tells The Ticker his program had been “really interested in finding ways to partner” with NMC ever since the announcement of Traverse City’s new Freshwater Research and Innovation Center (FRIC), which officially broke ground on Friday. While GVSU has existing partnerships with NMC, including through the college’s University Center, Jones says Annis and GLWSI hadn’t worked together until now.

“FRIC is going to be a great benefit; I think it fills a geographic gap, in terms of providing a platform for pursuing aquatic research in the state,” Jones says. “Because of that, we've been in a lot of discussions about making use of that facility – and, in fact, a big part of this grant application was trying to find a tangible first step for us to partner with folks within NMC and in the community up there. We were lucky enough to be successful in that first attempt, and we hope this is a launching pad for other projects that would leverage that new center.”

The grant comes from an NSF program called Experiential Learning in Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT), which Jones says aims to provide training programs in fields that are “changing rapidly because of emerging or novel technologies.” The three partners are targeting the marine technology space, and specifically the growing importance of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and artificial intelligence (AI) in that sector.

Lutchko says the new training curriculum will represent multiple new frontiers for GLWSI, starting with the addition of AUVs to NMC’s equipment “tool bag.”

“AUVs have been a huge piece of the industry for many years, but we've just never had the opportunity or the resources to have one in-house,” Lutchko says. “We used to get the Michigan State Police to come in for one day and do a demo for us, because they have an AUV they use for search and recovery. But that one day was the extent of what our students got. Now, we're talking about the opportunity for our students to have an entire academic course surrounded by that technology.”

“This grant will enable a transition from remotely operated vehicles, where the operators are out on a boat using remote controls to tell the robot where to go, which I understand has been the bread and butter of NMC’s program,” Jones says. “This enables the purchase of some autonomous platforms, which can be programmed to just go out and execute a task.”

Adding AI into the equation, Jones continues, “allows for even more complex tasks to be defined” for AUVs; “for modifications to the mission to be made autonomously by the underwater robot; and “for improving the efficiency with which those tasks can be completed.”

“For example, AI can take into account weather conditions and movement of water that might influence the path the robot should take,” Jones says. “If you're swimming upstream constantly against the flow of the water, that's not going to be very efficient, and the battery of the robot might drain. With the AI piece, the robot can detect those conditions underwater and shift the course it’s taking to be more efficient.”

Another example: “It could be that we send out a robot to look for the source of some contaminant,” Jones says. “If we have a sensor integrated with the robot, then with AI, the robot could essentially follow the scent of the pollutant like a bloodhound.”

Each of the partners for the NSF grant brings something different to the braintrust. NMC has the immediate access to the Great Lakes, as well as what Jones describes as “a nationally-known strength” in marine technology. “And here at the Annis Water Resources Institute at GVSU, we have a long track record of excellence in aquatic ecology research and management of water resources,” he adds. Notre Dame, meanwhile, are the AI experts.

The partners will spend the first year of the NSF grant period developing curriculum for a six-week training program, and the next two years running four 18-student cohorts through that course. “Four of the weeks will be online, led by an instructor from NMC, with input and collaboration from GVSU and Notre Dame,” Jones says. “And then the last two weeks, where the students tackle the hands-on experiential piece of deploying the underwater vehicle, that's going to happen in Traverse City.” He adds that GVSU plans to bring one of its research vessels, the W.G. Jackson, up north for the program.

Even beyond the three-year grant period, Lutchko says the project should pay dividends for NMC and the GLWSI. Not only will the college get to keep the new equipment, allowing for AUVs and AI to be incorporated into program curriculum long-term, but Lutchko also thinks “the optics of getting an NSF grant” will put the GLWSI “on the map” in a new way.

“Those grants are extremely competitive and heavily scrutinized,” he says. “Getting one shows that what we’re doing is believed in at a very high level.”

Lutchko also points to Notre Dame’s participation in the project as big deal for NMC.

“Because of FRIC, we are already looking at strengthening our relationships with existing partners – the GVSUs and Michigan States of the world,” Lutchko says. “But having an institution that we've had no connection with before, like Notre Dame? That just expands our reach and expands our network. It’s a huge opportunity for continuing to let people know who we are here at NMC, and what we do.”