The University of New Orleans (UNO), Louisiana State University (LSU), the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), Marine Information Resources Corporation (MIRC), and Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASV, LLC.) are collaborating to develop a Maritime Advanced Geospatial Intelligence Craft (MAGIC) to improve marine spill response capabilities worldwide.
The consortium’s collaborative research strategy involves the development of MAGIC as an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that can help improve the methods and technologies used for oil spill detection, tracking and monitoring, predicting of trajectories, containment, treatment, recovery and cleanup. This USV will also be used to acquire the baseline data necessary to advance observation, modeling, and remote sensing systems while enhancing our capability for monitoring the dynamic bio-physical properties in the Gulf of Mexico, coastal, and inland waters. Research advances through the shared use of MAGIC will be dedicated to improving oil spill response operations through unmanned operations.
We intend to use locations along the Gulf of Mexico as a natural laboratory to develop MAGIC while providing new information that can be used to supplement data from the Gulf of Mexico Coastal Ocean Observing System Regional Association (GCOOS-RA) and its subcomponent, the Wave-Current-Surge Information System (WAVCIS) offshore of Louisiana. Observational data will be integrated with numerical models and imagery in order to better understand the transport of oil, oil-spill fates, and oil-spill impacts on estuarine and coastal systems under the influence of tides, weather, and rivers.
