Date: 03/19/09

Speaker: Dr. G. Weymouth

Title: Hydrodynamic mapping using pressure sensing

Abstract:
Hydrodynamic sensing is instrumental to fish and some
amphibians. It also represents, for underwater vehicles, an alternative way of
sensing the fluid environment when visual and acoustic sensing are limited. To
assess the effectiveness of hydrodynamic sensing and gain insight into its
capabilities and limitations, we investigate the detection and identification
of a stationary obstacle using a general shape representation based on
conformal mapping. A dynamic filtering method is used to invert noisy
nonlinear pressure signals for the shape parameters. The results highlight the
dependance of the sensitivity of hydrodynamic sensing not only on the relative
distance to the disturbance but also its bearing.