Every year floods ravage cities like Malabon City in the Philippines, as the torrential downpours of seasonal typhoons quickly overwhelm the inadequate sewage systems and water spills out onto the streets. Without anywhere to go, the water drains slowly, forcing locals to wade through an unsanitary mix of water and sewage contents, an environment ripe for the spread of waterborne illnesses. The need to efficiently monitor flooded areas like this in order to identify contamination and locate stranded survivors was the motivation behind this project.
As part of this project we created a team of five autonomous airboats outfitted with environmental sensors and cameras that could be deployed in flooded conditions and work together to collect data and establish situational awareness. The airboat design was chosen due to its shallow draft and lack of moving parts beneath the waterline, which could be damaged or fouled when deployed in floodwater. The computing and navigational sensors for the robots were provided by an oboard android cell phone. The robots developed as part of this project would eventually go on to form the basis for my start-up environmental monitoring company, Platypus LLC.